




















i . 








THE BET 
AND OTHER STORIES 








THE BEIT 


AND OTHER STORIES 


BY 


ANTON TCHEKHOV 


TRANSLATED BY 


S. KOTELIANSKY AND J. M. MURRY 


JOHN W. LUCE & CO. 
BOSTON 


1915 





TRANSLATORS’ NOTE 


Stiepanovich and Stepanich are two forms 
of the same name, meaning “son of Stephen.” 
The abbreviated form is the more intimate and 
familiar. 

The Russian dishes mentioned in “ A Tedious 
Story” (p. 52) have no exact equivalents. 
Sossoulki are a kind of little dumplings eaten 
in soup ; scht is a soup made of sour cabbage; 
and kasha is a kind of porridge. 

The words of the song which the students 
sing in “ The Fit” come from Poushkin. 


2032461 


ak 


. 





CONTENTS 


Tue Ber. 

A Trpious Story 

Tue Fir 

MISFORTUNE 

AFTER THE THEATRE 
THat WreETCHED Boy . 
K\NEMIES 

A TRIFLING OccURRENCE 
A GENTLEMAN FRIEND 
OVERWHELMING SENSATIONS 
EXPENSIVE LESSONS 

A Livinc CALENDAR 
Oup AGE . 





THE BET 


Ir was a dark autumn night. The old banker 
was pacing from corner to corner of his study, 
recalling to his mind the party he gave in the 
autumn fifteen years ago. There were many 
clever people at the party and much interesting 
conversation. They talked among other things 
of capital punishment. The guests, among them 
not a few scholars and journalists, for the most 
part disapproved of capital punishment. They 
found it obsolete as a means of punishment, 
unfitted to a Christian State and immoral, 
Some of them thought that capital punishment 
should be replaced universally by life-imprison- 
ment. 

**T don’t agree with you,” said the host. “I 
myself have experienced neither capital punish- 
ment nor life-imprisonment, but if one may 
judge a priori, then in my opinion capital punish- 
ment is more moral and more humane than 
imprisonment. Execution kills instantly, life- 
imprisonment kills by degrees. Who is the 


more humane executioner, one who kills you in 
1 


2 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


a few seconds or one who draws the life out of 
you incessantly, for years?” 

“They’re both equally immoral,” remarked 
one of the guests, “ because their purpose is the 
same, to take away life. The State is not God. 
It has no right to take away that which it cannot 
give back, if it should so desire.” 

Among the company was a lawyer, a young 
man of about twenty-five. On being asked his 
opinion, he said: 

“Capital punishment and life-imprisonment are 
equally immoral ; but if I were offered the choice 
between them, I would certainly choose the 
second. It’s better to live somehow than not 
to live at all.” 

There ensued a lively discussion. The banker 
who was then younger and more nervous 
suddenly lost his temper, banged his fist on the 
table, and turning to the young lawyer, cried out: 

“Tt’s a lie. I bet you two millions you 
wouldn’t stick in a cell even for five years.” 

“* If that’s serious,”’ replied the lawyer, “‘ then 
I bet ll stay not five but fifteen.” 

“Fifteen! Done!” cried the banker. ‘“Gentle- 
men, I stake two millions.” 

“Agreed. You stake two millions, I my 
freedom,”’ said the lawyer. 

So this wild, ridiculous bet came to pass. The 
banker, who at thaif time had too many millions 
to count, spoiled ‘and capricious, was beside 
himself with rapture. During supper he said 
to the lawyer jokingly : 


- 


THE BET 3 


** Come to your senses, young man, before it’s 
too late. Two millions are nothing to me, but 
you stand to lose three or four of the best years 
of your life. I say three or four, because you'll 
never stick it out any longer. Don’t forget 
either, you unhappy man, that voluntary is 
much heavier than enforced imprisonment. The 
idea that you have the right to free yourself at 
any moment will poison the whole of your life 
in the cell. I pity you.’ 

And now the banker pacing from corner to 
corner, recalled all this and asked himself : 

““Why did I make this bet? What’s the 
good? The lawyer loses fifteen years of his life 
and I throw away two millions. Will it con- 
vince people that capital punishment is worse 
or better than imprisonment for life. No, No! 
all stuff and rubbish. On my part, it was the 
caprice of a well-fed man; on the lawyer’s, 
pure greed of gold.” 

He recollected further what happened after 
the evening party. It was decided that the 
lawyer must undergo his imprisonment under 
the strictest observation, in a garden-wing of 
the banker’s house. It was agreed that during 
the period he would be deprived of the right to 
cross the threshold, to see living people, to hear 
human voices, and to receive letters and news- 
papers. He was permitted to have a musical 
instrument, to read books, to write letters, to 
drink wine and smoke tobacco. By the agree- 
ment he could communicate, but only in silence, 


4 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


with the outside world through a little window 
specially constructed for this purpose. Every- 
thing necessary, books, music, wine, he could 
receive in any quantity by sending a note 
through the window. The agreement provided 
for all the minutest details, which made the 
confinement strictly solitary, and it obliged the 
lawyer to remain exactly fifteen years from 
twelve o’clock of November 14th 1870 to twelve 
o’clock of November 14th 1885. The least 
attempt on his part to violate the conditions, to 
escape if only for two minutes before the time 
freed the banker from the obligation to pay him 
the two millions. 

During the first year of imprisonment, the 
lawyer, as far as it was possible to judge from 
his short notes, suffered terribly from loneliness 
and boredom. From his wing day and night 
came the sound of the piano. He rejected wine 
and tobacco. ‘“‘ Wine,” he wrote, “ excites 
desires, and desires are the chief foes of a 
prisoner ; besides, nothing is more boring than 
to drink good wine alone,” and tobacco spoils 
the air in his room. During the first year the 
lawyer was sent books of a light character ; 
novels with a complicated love interest, stories 
of crime and fantasy, comedies, and so on. 

In the second year the piano was heard no 
longer and the lawyer asked only for classics. 
In the fifth year, music was heard again, and 
the prisoner asked for wine. Those who watched 
him said that during the whole of that year he 


THE BET 5 


was only eating, drinking, and lying on his bed. 
He yawned often and talked angrily to hjmself. 
Books he did not read. Sometimes at {nights'’ 
he would sit down to write. He would write 
for a long time and tear it all up in the morning. 
More than once he was heard to weep. 

In the second half of the sixth year, the 
prisoner began zealously to study languages, 
philosophy, and history. He fell on these 
subjects so hungrily that the banker hardly had 
time to get books enough for him. In the 
space of four years about six hundred volumes 
were bought at his request. It was while that 
passion lasted that the banker received the 
following letter from the prisoner: “‘ My dear 
gaoler, I am writing these lines in six languages. 
Show them to experts. Let them read them. If 
they do not find one single mistake, I beg you 
to give orders to have a gun fired off in the 
garden. By the noise I shall know that my 
efforts have not been in vain. The geniuses of 
all ages and countries speak in different lan- 
guages; but in them all burns the same flame. 
Oh, if you knew my heavenly happiness now 
that I can understand them!” The prisoner’s 
desire was fulfilled. Two shots were fired in 
the garden by the banker’s order. 

Later on, after the tenth year, the lawyer sat 
immovable before his table and read only the 
New Testament. The banker found it strange 
that a man who in four years had mastered six 
hundred erudite volumes, should have spent 


6 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


nearly a year in reading one book, easy to under- 
stand and by no means thick. The New Testa- 
ment was then replaced by the history of reli- 
gions and theology. 

During the last two years of his confinement 
the prisoner read an extraordinary amount, 
quite haphazard. Now he would apply him- 
self to the natural sciences, then would read 
Byron or Shakespeare. Notes used to come 
from him in which he asked to be sent at the 
same time a book on chemistry, a text-book of 
medicine, a novel, and some treatise on philo- 
sophy or theology. He read as though he were 
swimming in the sea among the broken pieces 
of wreckage, and in his desire to save his life 
was eagerly grasping one piece after another. 


II 


The banker recalled all this, and thought : 

“‘ To-morrow at twelve o’clock he receives his 
freedom. Under the agreement, I shall have to 
pay him two millions. If I pay, it’s all over with 
me. I am ruined for ever...” 

Fifteen years before he had too many millions 
to count, but now he was afraid to ask himself 
which he had more of, money or debts. Gamb- 
ling on the Stock-Exchange, risky speculation, 
and the recklessness of which he could not rid 
himself even in old age, had gradually brought 
his business to decay; and the fearless, self- 


THE BET 7 


confident, proud man of business had become an 
ordinary banker, trembling at every rise and fall 
in the market. 

“That cursed bet,’”? murmured the old man 
clutching his head in despair . . . “* Why didn’t 
the man die? He’s only forty years old. He 
will take away my last farthing, marry, enjoy 
life, gamble on the Exchange, and I will look 
on like an envious beggar and hear the same 
words #from him every day: ‘I’m obliged to 
you for the happiness of my life. Let me help 
you.’ No, it’s too much! The only escape 
from bankruptcy and disgrace—is that the man 
should die.” 

The clock had just struck three. The banker 
was listening. In the house everyone was asleep, 
and one could hear only the frozen trees whining 
outside the windows. Trying to make no 
sound, he took out of his safe the key of the 
door which had not been opened for fifteen years, 
put on his overcoat, and went out of the house. 
The garden was dark and cold. It was raining. 
A keen damp wind hovered howling over all 
the garden and gave the trees no rest. Though 
he strained his eyes, the banker could see neither 
the ground, nor the white statues, nor the 
garden-wing, nor the trees. Approaching the 
place where the garden wing stood, he called 
the watchman twice. There was no answer. 
Evidently the watchman had taken shelter from 
the bad weather and was now asleep somewhere 
in the kitchen or the greenhouse. 


8 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


‘“‘ Tf I have the courage to fulfil my intention,” 
thought the old man, “the suspicion will fall 
on the watchman first of all.” 

In the darkness he groped for the stairs and 
the door and entered the hall of the garden- 
wing, then poked his way into a narrow passage 
and struck a match. Not a soul was there. 
Someone’s bed, with no bedclothes on it, stood 
there, and an iron stove was dark in the corner. 
The seals on the door that led into the prisoner’s 
room were unbroken. 

When the match went out, the old man, 
trembling from agitation, peeped into the little 
window. 

In the prisoner’s room a candle was burning 
dim. The prisoner himself sat by the table. 
Only his back, the hair on his head and his 
hands were visible. On the table, the two 
chairs, the carpet by the table open books were 
strewn. 

Five minutes passed and the prisoner never 
once stirred. Fifteen years’ confinement had 
taught him to sit motionless. The banker 
tapped on the window with his finger, but the 
prisoner gave no movement in reply. Then the 
banker cautiously tore the seals from the door 
and put the key into the lock. The rusty lock 
gave a hoarse groan and the door creaked. The 
banker expected instantly to hear a cry of 
surprise and the sound of steps. Three minutes 
passed and it was as quiet behind the door as it 
had been before. He made up his mind to enter. 


THE BET 9 


Before the table sat a man, unlike an ordinary 
human being. It was a skeleton, with tight- 
drawn skin, with a woman’s long curly hair, 
and a shaggy beard. The colour of his face was 
yellow, of an earthy shade; the cheeks were 
sunken, the back long and narrow, and the hand 
upon which he leaned his hairy head was so 
lean and skinny that it was painful to look 
upon. His hair was already silvering with grey, 
and no onewho glanced at the senile emaciation of 
the face would have believed that he was only 
forty years old. On the table, before his bended 
head, lay a sheet of paper on which something 
was written in a tiny hand. 

“Poor devil,” thought the banker, “he’s 
asleep and probably seeingjmillions in his dreams. 
I have only to take and’ throw this half-dead 
thing on the bed, smother him a moment with 
the pillow, and the most careful examination 
will find no trace of unnatural death. But, 
first, let us read what he has written here.” 

The banker took the sheet from the table and 
read : 

“To-morrow at twelve o’clock midnight, I 
shall obtain my freedom and the right to mix 
with people. But before I leave this room and 
see the sun I think it necessary to say a few 
words to you. On my own clear conscience 
and before God who sees me I declare to you 
that I despise freedom, life, health, and all that 
your books call the blessings of the world. 

“For fifteen years I have diligently studied 

B 


10 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


earthly life. True, I saw neither the earth nor 
the people, but in your books I drank fragrant 
wine, sang songs, hunted deer and wild boar in 
the forests, loved women... And beautiful 
women, like clouds ethereal, created by the magic 
of your poets’ genius, visited me by night and 
whispered onderful tales, which made my 
head drunken. In your books I climbed the 
summits of Elbruz and Mont Blane and saw 
from thence how the sun rose in the morning, 
and in the evening overflowed the sky, the ocean 
and the mountain ridges with a purple gold. 
I saw from thence how above me lightnings 
glimmered cleaving the clouds; I saw green 
forests, fields, rivers, lakes, cities; I heard 
syrens singing, and the playing of the pipes of 
Pan; I touched the wings of beautiful devils 
who came flying to me to speak of God +. . In 
your books I cast myself into bottomless abysses, 
worked miracles, burned cities to the ground, 
preached new religions, conquered whole 
countries... 

‘** Your books gave me wisdom. All that un- 
wearying human thought created in the centuries 
is compressed to a little lump in my skull. I 
know that I am more clever than you all. 

“And I despise your books, despise all 
wordly blessings and wisdom. Everything is 
void, frail, visionary and delusive like a mirage. 
Though you be proud and wise and beautiful, 
yet will death wipe you from the face of the 
earth like the mice underground; and your 








THE BET 11 


posterity, your history, and the immortality 
of your men of genius will be as frozen slag, 
burnt down together with the _ terrestrial 
globe. ' 

“You are mad, and gone the wrong way. 
You take lie for truth and ugliness for beauty. 
You would marvel if by certain conditions there 
should suddenly grow on apple and orange trees, 
instead of fruit, frogs and lizards, and if roses 
should begin to breathe the odour of a sweating 
horse. So do I marvel at you, who have bar- 
tered heaven for earth. I do not want to under- 
stand you. 

** That I may show you in deed my contempt 
for that by which you live, I waive the two 
millions of which I once dreamed as of paradise, 
and which I now despise. That I may deprive 
myself of my right to them, I shall come out 
from here five minutes before the stipulated 
term, and thus shall violate the agreement.” 

When he had read, the banker put the sheet 
on the table, kissed thejhead of the strange man, 
and began to weep. He went out of the wing. 
Never at any other time, not even after his 
terrible losses on the Exchange, had he felt 
such contempt for himself as now. Coming home, 
he lay down on his bed, but agitation and tears 
kept him long from sleep .. . 

The next morning the poor watchman came 
running to him and told him that they had seen 
the man who lived in the wing climbing through 
the window into the garden. He had gone to 

B 2 


= 
12 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


the gate and disappeared. Together with his 
servants the banker went instantly to the wing 
and established the escape of his prisoner. To 
avoid unnecessary rumours he took the paper 
with the renunciation from the table and, on 
his return, locked it in his safe. 


A TEDIOUS STORY 


(From AN OLp Man’s JouRNAL) 


THERE lives in Russia an emeritus professor, 
Nicolai Stiepanovich . . . privy councillor and 
knight. He has so many Russian and foreign 
Orders that when he puts them on the students 
call him “the holy picture.” His acquaintance 
is most distinguished. Not a single famous 
scholar lived or died during the last twenty-five 
or thirty years but he was intimately acquainted 
with him. Now he has no one to be friendly 
with, but speaking of the past the long list 
of his eminent friends would end with such 
names as Pirogov, Kavelin, and the poet 
Nekrasov, who bestowed upon him their warmest 
and most sincere friendship. He is a member of 
all the Russian and of three foreign universities, 
et cetera, et cetera. All this, and a great 
deal besides, forms what is known as my 
name. 

This name of mine is very popular. It is 
known to every literate person in Russia ; 

13 


14 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


abroad it is mentioned from professorial chairs 
with the epithets “‘ eminent and esteemed.” It 
is reckoned among those fortunate names which 
to mention in vain or to abuse in public or in 
the Press is considered a mark of bad breeding. - 
Indeed, it should be so; because with my name 
is inseparably associated the idea of a famous, 
richly gifted, and indubitably useful person. 
I am a steady worker, with the endurance of 
a camel, which is important. I am also en- 
dowed with talent, which is still more important. 
In passing, I would add that I am a well-edu- 
cated, modest, and honest fellow. I have never 
poked my nose into letters or politics, never 
sought popularity in disputes with the ignorant, 
and made no speeches either at dinners or at my 
colleagues’ funerals. Altogether there is not a 
single spot on my learned name, and it has 
nothing to complain of. It is fortunate. 

The bearer of this name, that is myself, 
is a man of sixty-two, with a bald head, 
false teeth and an incurable tic. My name 
is as brilliant and prepossessing, as I myself 
am dull and ugly. My head and hands 
tremble from weakness; my neck, like that of 
one of Turgeniev’s heroines, resembles the 
handle of a counter-bass; my chest is hollow 
and my back narrow. When I speak or read my 
mouth twists, and when I smile my whole face 
is covered with senile, deathly wrinkles. There 
is nothing imposing in my pitiable face, save 
that when I suffer from the tic, I have a 


A TEDIOUS STORY 15 


singular expression which compels anyone who 
looks at me to think: ‘“ This man will die soon, 
for sure.” 

I can still read pretty well; I can still hold 
the attention of my audience for two hours. 
My passionate manner, the literary form of 
my exposition and my humour make the 
defects of my voice ‘almost unnoticeable, 
though it is dry, harsh, and hard like a hypocrite’s. 
But I write badly. The part of my brain 
which governs the ability to write refused 
office. My memory has weakened, and my 
thoughts are too inconsequent; and when I 
expound them on paper, I always have a feeling 
that I have lost the sense of their organic con- 
nection. The construction is monotonous, and 
the sentence feeble and timid. I often do not 
write what I want to, and when I write the end 
I cannot remember the beginning. I often 
forget common words, and in writing a letter 
I always have to waste much energy in order to 
avoid superfluous sentences and unnecessary 
incidental statements; both bear clear witness 
of the decay of my intellectual activity. And it 
is remarkable that, the simpler the letter, the 
more tormenting is my effort. When writing 
a scientific article I feel much freer and much 
more intelligent than in writing a letter of 
welcome or a report. One thing more: it is 
easier for me to write German or English than 
Russian. . 

As regards my present life, I must first of all 


16 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


note insomnia, from which I have begun to suffer 
lately. If I were asked: ‘“* What is now the 
chief and fundamental fact of your existence ? ” 
I would answer: “ Insomnia.” From habit, 
I still undress at midnight precisely and get 
into bed. I soon fall asleep but wake just 
after one with the feeling that I have not slept 
at all. I must get out of bed and light the lamp. 
For an hour or two I walk about the room from 
corner to corner and inspect the long familiar 
pictures. When I am weary of walking I sit 
down to the table. I sit motionless thinking 
of nothing, feeling no desires; if a book lies 
before me I draw it mechanically towards me 
and read without interest. Thus lately in one 
night I read mechanically a whole novel with 
a strange title, “ Of What the Swallow Sang.” 
Or in order to occupy my attention I make 
myself count to a thousand, or I imagine the 
face of some one of my friends, and begin to 
remember in what year and under what cir- 
cumstances he joined the faculty. I love to 
listen to sounds. Now, two rooms away from me 
my daughter Liza will say something quickly, in 
her sleep; then my wife will walk through the 
drawing-room with a candle and infallibly drop 
the box of matches. Then the shrinking wood of 
the cupboard squeaks or the burner of the lamp 
tinkles suddenly, and all these sounds somehow 
agitate me. 

Not to sleep of nights confesses one abnormal ; 
and therefore I wait impatiently for the morning 


A TEDIOUS STORY 17 


and the day, when I have the right not to sleep. 
Many oppressive hours pass before the cock 
crows. He is my harbinger of good. As soon 
as he has crowed I know that in an hour’s 
time the porter downstairs will awake and 
for some reason or other go up the stairs, 
coughing angrily ; and later beyond the windows 
the air begins to pale gradually and voices echo 
in the street. 

The day begins with the coming of my wife. 
She comes in to me in a petticoat, with her hair 
undone, but already washed and smelling of 
eau de Cologne, and looking as though she came 
in by accident, saying the same thing every 
time: ‘‘ Pardon, I came in for a moment. 
You haven’t slept again?’ Then she puts 
the lamp out, sits by the table and begins to 
talk. Iam nota prophet but I know beforehand 
what the subject of conversation will be, every 
morning the same. Usually, after breathless 
inquiries after my health, she suddenly remembers 
our son, the officer, who is serving in Warsaw. 
On the twentieth of each month we send him 
fifty roubles. This is our chief subject of 
conversation. 

“Of course it is hard on us,” my wife sighs. 
‘** But until he is finally settled we are obliged 
to help him. The boy is among strangers ; 
the pay is small. But if you like, next month 
we'll send him forty roubles instead of fifty. 
What do you think ?” 

Daily experience might have convinced my 


18 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


wife that expenses do not grow less by talking 
of them. But my wife does not acknowledge 
experience and speaks about our officer punc- 
tually every day, about bread, thank Heaven, 
being cheaper and sugar a half-penny dearer— 
and all this in a tone as though it were news to 
me. 

I listen and agree mechanically. Probably 
because I have not slept during the night strange 
idle thoughts take hold of me. I look at my 
wife and wonder like a child. In perplexity 
I ask myself: This old, stout, clumsy woman, 
with sordid cares and anxiety about bread and 
butter written in the dull expression of her face, 
her eyes tired with eternal thoughts of debts 
and poverty, who can talk only of expenses 
and smile only when things are cheap—was this 
once the slim Varya whom I loved passionately 
for her fine clear mind, her pure soul, her beauty, 
and as Othello loved Desdemona, for her 
“compassion”? of my science? Is she really 
the same, my wife Varya, who bore me a son? 

I gaze intently into the fat, clumsy old 
woman’s face. I seek in her my Varya; but 
from the past nothing remains but her fear for 
my health and her way of calling my salary 
“our ” salary and my hat “our” hat. It pains 
me to look at her, and to console her, if only a 
little, I let her talk as she pleases, and I am silent 
even when she judges people unjustly, or scolds 
me because I do not practise and do not publish 
text-books. 


A TEDIOUS STORY 19 


Our conversation always ends in the same way. 
My wife suddenly remembers that I have not 
yet had tea, and gives a start : 

“Why am I sitting down?” she says, 
getting up. “The samovar has been on the 
table a long while, and I sit chatting. How 
forgetful I am? Good gracious! ”’ 

She hurries away, but stops at the door to 
say : 

*““ We owe Yegor five months’ wages. Do you 
realise it? It’s a bad thing to let the servants’ 
wages run on. I’ve said so often. It’s much 
easier to pay ten roubles every month than 
fifty for five !”’ 

Outside the door she stops again : 

“TI pity our poor Liza more than anybody. 
The girl studies at the Conservatoire. She’s 
always in good society, and the Lord only knows 
how she’s dressed. That fur-coat of hers! 
It’s a sin to show yourself in the street in it. 
If she had a different father, it would do, but 
everyone knows he is a famous professor, a 
privy councillor.” 

So, having reproached me for my name and 
title, she goes away at last. Thus begins my 
day. It does not improve. 

When I have drunk my tea, Liza comes in, 
in a fur-coat and hat, with her music, ready to 
go to the Conservatoire. She is twenty-two. 
She looks younger. She is pretty, rather like 
my wife when she was young. She kisses me 
tenderly on my forehead and my hand. 


20 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


** Good morning, Papa. Quite well ? ” 

As a child she adored ice-cream, and I often 
had to take her to a confectioner’s. Ice-cream 
was her standard of beauty. If she wanted to 
praise me, she used to say: “ Papa, you are 
ice-creamy.”” One finger she called the pis- 
tachio, the other the cream, the third the rasp- 
berry finger and soon. And when she came to 
say good morning, I used to lift her on to my 
knees and kiss her fingers, and say : 

‘“* The cream one, the pistachio ore, the lemon 
one.” 

And now from force of habit I kiss Liza’s 
fingers and murmur : 

** Pistachio one, cream one, lemon one.” But 
it does not sound the same. I am cold like the 
ice-cream and I feel ashamed. When my 
daughter comes in and touches my forehead with 
her lips I shudder as though a bee had stung my 
forehead, I smile constrainedly and turn away 
my face. Since my insomnia began a question 
has been driving like a nail into my brain. My 
daughter continually sees how terribly I, an 
old man, blush because I owe the servant his 
wages ; she sees how often the worry of small 
debts forces me to leave my work and to pace 
the room from corner to corner for hours, think- 
ing; but why hasn’t she, even once, come to 
me without telling her mother and whispered : 
** Father, here’s my watch, bracelets, earrings, 
dresses... Pawn them all... You need 
money’? Why, seeing how I and her mother 


A TEDIOUS STORY ; a 


try to hide our poverty, out of false pride—why 
does she not deny herself the luxury of music 
lessons ? I would not accept the watch, the 
bracelets, or her sacrifices—God forbid !—I do 
not want that. 

Which reminds me of my son, the Warsaw 
officer. He is a clever, honest, and sober fellow. 
But that doesn’t mean very much. If I had an 
old father, ahd I knew that there were moments 
when he was ashamed of his poverty, I think 
I would give up my commission to someone 
else and hire myself out as a navvy. These 
thoughts of the children poison me. What good 
are they? Only a mean and irritable person 
can take refuge in thinking evil of ordinary 
people because they are not heroes. But enough 
of that. 

At a quarter to ten I have to go and lecture 
to my dear boys. I dress myself and walk the 
road I have known these thirty years. For me 
it has a history of its own. Here is a big grey 
building with a chemist’s shop beneath. A tiny 
house once stood there, and it was a beer-shop. 
In this beer-shop I thought out my thesis, and 
wrote my first love-letter to Varya. I wrote it 
in pencil on a scrap of paper that began 
“‘Historia Morbi.” Here is a grocer’s shop. 
It used to belong to a little Jew whe sold me 
cigarettes on credit, and later on to a fat woman 
who loved students “‘ because every one of them 
had a mother.” Now a red-headed merchant 
sits there, a very nonchalant man, who drinks 


22 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


tea from a copper tea-pot. And here are the 
gloomy gates of the University that have not 
been repaired for years; a weary porter in a 
sheepskin coat, a broom, heaps of snow... Such 
gates cannot produce a good impression on a 
boy who comes fresh from the provinces and 
imagines that the temple of science is really a 
temple. Certainly, in the history of Russian 
pessimism, the age of university buildings, the 
dreariness of the corridors, the smoke-stains on 
the walls, the meagre light, the dismal appear- 
ance of the stairs, the clothes-pegs and the 
benches, hold one of the foremost places in the 
series of predisposing causes. Here is our 
garden. It does not seem to have grown any 
better or any worse since I was a student. I 
do not like it. It would be much more sensible 
if tall pine-trees and fine oaks grew there instead 
of consumptive lime-trees, yellow acacias and 
thin clipped lilac. The student’s mood is created 
mainly by every one of the surroundings in 
which he studies; therefore he must see every- 

“where before him only what is great and strong 
and exquisite. Heaven preserve him from 
starveling trees, broken windows, and drab walls 
and doors covered with torn oilcloth. 

As I approach my main staircase the door is 
open wide. I am met by my old friend, of the 
same age and name as I, Nicolas the porter. 
He grunts as he lets me in: 

“It’s frosty, Your Excellency.” 

Or if my coat is wet: 


A TEDIOUS STORY — 23 


“It’s raining a bit, Your Excellency.” 

Then he runs in front of me and opens all the 
doors on my way. In the study he carefully 
takes off my coat and at the same time manages 
to tell me some university news. Because of 
the close acquaintance that exists between all 
the University porters and keepers, he knows 
all that happens in the four faculties, in the 
registry, in the chancellor’s cabinet, and the 
library. He knows everything. When, for in- 
stance, the resignation of the rector or dean is 
under discussion, I hear him talking to the 
junior porters, naming candidates and explain- 
ing offhand that so and so will not be approved 
by the Minister, so and so will himself refuse the 
honour; then he plunges into fantastic details 
of some mysterious papers received in the 
registry, of a secret conversation which appears 
to have taken place between the Minister and 
the curator, and so on. These details apart, 
he is almost always right. The impressions he 
forms of each candidate are original, but also 
true. If you want to know who read his thesis, 
joined the staff, resigned or died in a particular 
year, then you must seek the assistance of this 
veteran’s colossal memory. He will not only 
name you the year, month, and day, but give 
you the accompanying details of this or any 
other event. Such memory is the privilege of 
love. : 

He is the guardian of the university traditions. 
From the porters before him he inherited many 


f 


24 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


legends of the life of the university. He added 
to this wealth much of his own and if you like 
he will tell you many stories, long or short. 
He can tell you of extraordinary savants who 
knew everything, of remarkable scholars who did 
not sleep for weeks on end, of numberless 
martyrs to science; good triumphs over evil 
with him. The weak always conquer the strong, 
the wise man the fool, the modest the proud, the 
young the old. There is no need to take all 
these legends and stories for sterling ; but filter 
them, and you will find what you want in your 
filter, a noble tradition and the names of true 
heroes acknowledged by all. 

In our society all the information about the 
learned world consists entirely of anecdotes of 
the extraordinary absent-mindedness of old 
professors, and of a handful of jokes, which are 
ascribed to Guber or to myself or to Baboukhin. 
But this is too little for an educated society. 
If it loved science, savants and students as 
Nicolas loves them, it would long ago have had 
a literature of whole epics, stories, and bio- 
graphies. But unfortunately this is yet to be. 

The news told, Nicolas looks stern and we 
begin to talk business. If an outsider were then 
to hear how freely Nicolas uses the jargon, 
he would be inclined to think that he was a 
scholar, posing as a soldier. By the way, the 
rumours of the university-porter’s erudition 
are very exaggerated. It is true that Nicolas 
knows more than a hundred Latin tags, can put 


A TEDIOUS STORY 25 


a’ skeleton together and on occasion make a 
preparation, can make the students laugh with 
a long learned quotation, but the simple theory 
of the circulation of the blood is as dark to him 
now as it was twenty years ago. 

At the table in my room, bent low over a 
book or a preparation, sits my dissector, Peter 
Ignatievich. He is a hardworking, modest 
man of thirty-five without any gifts, already 
bald and with a big belly. He works from 
morning to night, reads tremendously and 
remembers everything he has read. In this 
respect he is not merely an excellent man, but 
a man of gold; but in all others he is a cart- 
horse, or if you like a learned blockhead. The 
characteristic traits of a cart-horse which dis- 
tinguish him from a creature of talent are these. 
His outlook is narrow, absolutely bounded by 
his specialism. Apart from his own subject 
he is as naive as a child. I remember once 
entering the room and saying: 

** Think what bad luck! They say, Skobielev 
is dead.” 

Nicolas crossed himself; but Peter Ignatie- 
vich turned to me: 

** Which Skobielev do you mean ? ” 

Another time,—some time earlier—TI an- 
nounced that Professor Pierov was dead. That 
darling Peter Ignatievich asked : 

** What was his subject ? ” 

I imagine that if Patti sang into his ear, or 
Russia were attacked by hordes of Chinamen, 

G 


26 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


or there was an earthquake, he would not lift 
a finger, but would go on in the quietest way 
with his eye Screwed over his microscope. In 
a word: “ What’s Hecuba to him?” I would 
give anything to see how this dry old stick goes 
to bed with his wife. 

Another trait: a fanatical belief in the in- 
fallibility of science, above all in everything 
that the Germans write. He is sure of himself 
and his preparations, knows the purpose of life, 
is absolutely ignorant of the doubts and dis- 
illusionments that turn talents grey,—a slavish 
worship of the authorities, and not a shadow of 
need to think for himself. It is hard to persuade 
him and quite impossible to discuss with him. 
Just try a discussion with a man who is pro- 
foundly convinced that the best science is 
medicine, the best men doctors, the best 
traditions—the medical! From the ugly past 
of medicine only one tradition has survived,— 
the white necktie that doctors wear still. For 
a learned, and more generally for an educated 
person there can exist only a general university 
tradition, without any division into traditions 
of medicine, of law, and so on. But it’s quite 
impossible for Peter Ignatievich to agree with 
that; and he is ready to argue it with you till 
doomsday. 

His future is quite plain to me. During 
the whole of his life he will make several hundred 
preparations of extraordinary purity, will write 
any number of dry, quite competent, essays, 


A TEDIOUS STORY 27 


will make about ten scrupulously accurate 
translations ; but he won’t invent gunpowder. 
For gunpowder, imagination is wanted, in- 
ventiveness, and a gift for divination, and 
Peter Ignatievich has nothing of the kind. 
In short, he is not a master of science but a 
labourer. 

Peter Ignatievich, Nicolas, and I whisper 
together. We are rather strange to ourselves. 
One feels something quite particular, when the 
audience booms like the sea behind the door. 
In thirty years I have not grown used to this 
feeling, and I have it every morning. I button 
up my frock-coat nervously, ask Nicolas unneces- 
sary questions, get angry .. . It is as though 
I were afraid ; but it is not fear, but something 
else which I cannot name nor describe. 

Unnecessarily, I look at my watch and say: 

“* Well, it’s time to go.” 

And we march in, in this order: Nicolas with 
the preparations or the atlases in front, myself 
next, and after me, the cart-horse, modestly 
hanging his head; or, if necessary, a corpse on 
a stretcher in front and behind the corpse 
Nicolas and so on. The students rise when I 
appear, then sit down and the noise of the sea 
is suddenly still. Calm begins. 

I know what I will lecture about, but I know 
nothing of how I will lecture, where I will begin 
and where I will end. There is not a single 
sentence ready in my brain. But as soon as 
I glance at the audience, sitting around me in 

c 2 


28 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


an amphitheatre, and utter the stereotyped “‘ In 
our last lecture we ended with...” and the 
sentences fly out of my soul in a long line— 
then it is full steam ahead. I speak with irre- 
sistible speed, and with passion, and it seems 
as though no earthly power could check the 
current of my speech. In order to lecture well, 
that is without being wearisome and to the 
listener’s profit, besides talent you must have 
the knack of it and experience ; you must have 
a clear idea both of your own powers, of the 
people to whom you are lecturing, and of the 
subject of your remarks. Moreover, you must 
be quick in the uptake, keep a sharp eye open, 
and never for a moment lose your field of 
vision. 

When he presents the composer’s thought, a 
good conductor does twenty things at once. He 
reads the score, waves his baton, watches the 
singer, makes a gesture now towards the drum, 
now to the double-bass, and so on. It is the 
same with me when lecturing. I have some 
hundred and fifty faces before me, quite unlike 
each other, and three hundred eyes staring me 
straight in the face. My purpose is to conquer 
this many-headed hydra. If I have a clear 
idea how far they are attending and how much 
they are comprehending every minute while I 
am lecturing, then the hydra is in my power. 
/My other opponent is within me. This is the 
endless variety of forms, phenomena and laws, 
and the vast number of ideas, whether my own 


A TEDIOUS STORY 29 


or others’, which depend upon them. Every 
moment I must be skilful enough to choose 
what is most important and necessary from this 
enormous material, and just as swiftly as my 
speech flows to clothe my thought in a form which 
will penetrate the hydra’s understanding and 
excite its attention. Besides I must watch care- 
fully to see that my thoughts shall not be pre- 
sented as they have been accumulated, but in 
a certain order, necessary for the correct compo- 
sition of the picture which I wish to paint. 
Further, I endeavour to make my speech literary, 
my definitions brief and exact, my sentences 
as simple and elegant as possible. Every 
moment I must hold myself in and remember 
that I have only an hour and forty minutes to 
spend. In other words, it is a heavy labour. 
At one and the same time you have to be a 
savant, a schoolmaster, and an orator, and it 
is a failure if the orator triumphs over the school- 
master in you or the schoolmaster over the 
orator. 

After lecturing for a quarter, for half an hour, 
I notice suddenly that the students have begun 
to stare at the ceiling or Peter Ignatievich. 
One will feel for his handkerchief, another settle 
himself comfortably, another smile at his own 
thoughts. This means their attention is tried. 
I must take steps. I seize the first opening and 
make a pun. All the hundred and fifty faces 
have a broad smile, their eyes flash merrily, and 
for a while you can hear the boom of the sea. 


30 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


I laugh too. Their attention is refreshed and 
I can go on. 

No sport, no recreation, no game ever gave 
me such delight as reading a lecture. Only in 
a lecture could I surrender myself wholly to 
passion and understand that inspiration is not 
a poet’s fiction, but exists indeed. And I do 
not believe that Hercules, even after the most 
delightful of his exploits, felt such a pleasant 
weariness as I experienced every time after a 
lecture. 

This was in the past. Now at lectures I 
experience only torture. Not half an hour 
passes before I begin to feel an invincible weak- 
ness in my legs and shoulders. I sit down in 
my chair, but I am not used to lecture sitting. 
In a moment I am up again, and lecture standing. 
Then I sit down again. Inside my mouth is 
dry, my voice is hoarse, my head feels dizzy. 
To hide my state from my audience I drink some 
water now and then, cough, wipe my nose con- 
tinually, as though I was troubled by a cold, 
make inopportune puns, and finally announce 
the interval earlier than I should. But chiefly 
I feel ashamed. 

Conscience and reason tell me that the best 
thing I could do now is to read my farewell 
lecture to the boys, give them my last word, 
bless them and give up my place to someone 
younger and stronger than I. But, heaven be 
my judge, I have not the courage to act up to 
my conscience. 


A TEDIOUS STORY 31 


Unfortunately, I am neither philosopher nor 
theologian. I know quite well I have no more 
than six months to live; and it would seem that 
now I ought to be mainly occupied with questions 
of the darkness beyond the grave, and the 
visions which will visit my sleep in the earth. 
But somehow my soul is not curious of these 
questions, though my mind grants every atom 
of their importance. Now before my death it is 
just as it was twenty or thirty years ago. Only 
science interests me. When I take my last 
breath I shall still believe that Science is the 
most important, the most beautiful, the most 
necessary thing in the life of man; that she has 
always been and always will be the highest 
manifestation of love, and that by her alone will 
man triumph over nature and himself. This 
faith is, perhaps, at bottom naive and unfair, 
but I am not to blame if this and not another is 
my faith. To conquer this faith within me is 
for me impossible. 

But this is beside the point. I only ask that 
you should incline to my weakness and under- 
stand that to tear a man who is more deeply 
concerned with the destiny of a brain tissue 
than the final goal of creation away from his 
rostrum and his students is like taking him and 
nailing him up in a coffin without waiting until 
he is dead. 

Because of my insomnia and the _ intense 
struggle with my increasing weakness a strange 
thing happens inside me. In the middle of my 


32 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


lecture tears rise to my throat, my eyes begin 
to ache, and I have a passionate and hysterical 
desire to stretch out my hands and moan aloud. 
I want to cry out that fate has doomed me, a 
famous man, to death; that in some six months 
here in the auditorium another will be master. 
I want to cry out that I am poisoned; that new 
ideas that I did not know before have poisoned 
the last days of my life, and sting my brain 
incessantly like mosquitoes. At that moment 
my position seems so terrible to me that I want 
all my students to be terrified, to jump from 
their seats and rush panic-stricken to the door, 
shrieking in despair. 
It is not easy to live through such moments. 


II 


After the lecture I sit at home and work. I 
read reviews, dissertations, or prepare for the 
next lecture, and sometimes I write something. 
I work with interruptions, since I have to receive 
visitors. 

The bell rings. It is a friend who has come to ~ 
talk over some business. He enters with hat 
and stick. He holds them both in front of him 
and says: 

** Just a minute, a minute. Sit down, cher 
confrére. Only a word or two.” 

First we try to show each other that we are 
both extraordinarily polite and very glad to see 
each other. I make him sit down in the chair, 


A TEDIOUS STORY 33 


and he makes me sit down; and then we touch 
each other’s waists, and put our hands on each 
other’s buttons, as though we were feeling each 
other and afraid to burn ourselves. We both 
laugh, though we say nothing funny. Sitting 
down, we bend our heads together and begin to 
whisper to each other. We must gild our 
conversation with such Chinese formalities as : 
** You remarked most justly ” or “‘ I have already 
had the occasion to say.” We must giggle if 
either of us makes a pun, though it’s a bad one. 
When we have finished with the business, my 
friend gets up with a rush, waves his hat towards 
my work, and begins to take his leave. We feel 
each other once more and laugh. I accompany 
him down to the hall. There I help my friend 
on with his coat, but he emphatically declines 
so great an honour. Then, when Yegor opens 
the door my friend assures me that I will catch 
cold, and I pretend to be ready to follow him 
into the street. And when I finally return to 
my study my face keeps smiling still, it must be 
from inertia. 

A little later another ring. Someone enters 
the hall, spends a long time taking off his coat 
and coughs. Yegor brings me word that a 
student has come. I tell him to show him up. 
In a minute a pleasant-faced young man appears. 
For a year we have been on these forced terms 
together. He sends in abominable answers at 
examinations, and I mark him gamma. Every 
year I have about seven of these people to 


34 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


whom, to use the students’ slang, “I give a 
plough ”’ or “haul them through.” Those of 
them who fail because of stupidity or illness, 
usually bear their cross in patience and do not 
bargain with me; only sanguine temperaments, 
** open natures,” bargain with me and come to 
my house, people whose appetite is spoiled or 
who are prevented from going regularly to the 
opera by a delay in their examinations. With 
the first I am over-indulgent ; the second kind 
I keep on the run for a year. 

** Sit down,” I say to my guest. ‘“‘ What was 
it you wished to say?” 

‘“* Forgive me for troubling you, Professor...” 
he begins, stammering and never looking me 
in the face. ‘“‘I would not venture to trouble 
you unless... I was up for my examination 
before you for the fifth time . . . and I failed. 
I implore you to be kind, and give me a ‘ satis,’ 
because .. .” 

The defence which all idlers make of them- 
selves is always the same. They have passed 
in every other subject with distinction, and failed 
only in mine, which is all the more strange 
because they had always studied my subject 
most diligently and know it thoroughly. They 
failed through some inconceivable misunder- 
standing. 

** Forgive me, my friend,” I say to my guest. 
“But I can’t give you a ‘ satis ’—impossible. 
Go and read your lectures again, and then come. 
Then we'll see.” 


A TEDIOUS STORY 35 


Pause. I get a desire to torment the student 
a little, because he prefers beer and the opera 
to science; and I say with a sigh: 

“In my opinion, the best thing for you now 
is to give up the Faculty of Medicine altogether. 
With your abilities, if you find it impossible to 
pass the examination, then it seems you have 
neither the desire nor the vocation to be a 
doctor.” . 

My sanguine friend’s face grows grave. 

** Excuse me, Professor,” he smiles, “* but it 
would be strange, to say the least, on my part. 
Studying medicine for five years and suddenly 
—to throw it over.” . 

** Yes, but it’s better to waste five years than 
to spend your whole life afterwards in an 
occupation which you dislike.” 

Immediately I begin to feel sorry for him and 
hasten to say: 

** Well, do as you please. Read a little and 
come again.” 

*“* When ?”’ the idler asks, dully. 

** Whenever you like. To-morrow, even.” 

And I read in his pleasant eyes. ‘“‘ I can come 
again; but you'll send me away again, you 
beast.” 

** Of course,”’ I say, “‘ you won’t become more 
learned because you have to come up to me 
fifteen times for examination; but this will 
form your character. You must be thankful 
for that.” 

Silence. I rise and wait for my guest te 


36 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


leave. But he stands there, looking at the 
window, pulling at his little beard and thinking. 
It becomes tedious. 

My sanguine friend has a pleasant, succulent 
voice, clever, amusing eyes, a good-natured face, 
rather puffed by assiduity to beer and much 
resting on the sofa. Evidently he could tell 
me many interesting things about the opera, 
about his love affairs, about the friends he 
adores ; but, unfortunately, it is not the thing. 
And I would so eagerly listen ! 

‘““On my word of honour, Professor, if you 
give me a ‘satis’ Pll...” 

As soon as it gets to “‘ my word of honour,” 
I wave my hands and sit down to the table. 
The student thinks for a while and says, de- 
jectedly : 

“In that case, good-bye . . . Forgive me!” 

‘“* Good-bye, my friend . . . Good-bye!” 

He walks irresolutely into the hall, slowly 
puts on his coat, and, when he goes into the 
street, probably thinks again for a long while ; 
having excogitated nothing better than “ old 
devil’? for me, he goes to a cheap restaurant to 
drink beer and dine, and then home to sleep. 
Peace be to your ashes, honest labourer ! 

A third ring. Enters a young doctor in a new 
black suit, gold-rimmed spectacles and the in- 
evitable white necktie. He introduces himself. 
I ask him to take a seat and inquire his business. 
The young priest of science begins to tell me, 
not without agitation, that he passed his doctor’s 


A TEDIOUS STORY 37 


examination this year, and now has only to write 
his dissertation. He would like to work with 
me, under my guidance ; and I would do him a 
great kindness if I would suggest a subject for 
his dissertation. 

““T should be delighted to be of use to you, 
mon cher confrére,” I say. ‘* But first of all, 
let us come to an agreement as to what is 
a dissertation. Generally we understand by 
this, work produced as the result of an in- 
- dependent creative power. Isn’t that so? 
But a work written on another’s subject, under 
another’s guidance, has a different name.” 

The aspirant is silent. I fire up and jump out 
of my seat. ‘“* Why do you all come to me? 
I can’t understand,” I cry out angrily. ‘* Do 
I keep a shop? I don’t sell theses across the 
counter. For the one thousandth time I ask 
you all to leave me alone. Forgive my rudeness, 
but I’ve got tired of it at last!” 

The aspirant is silent. Only, a tinge of colour 
shows on his cheek. His face expresses his 
profound respect for my famous name and my 
erudition, but I see in his eyes that he despises my 
voice, my pitiable figure, my nervous gestures. 
When I am angry I seem to him a very queer 
fellow. 

““T do not keep a shop,” I storm. “It’s an 
amazing business! Why don’t you want to be 
independent ? Why do you find freedom so 
objectionable ? ” 

I say a great deal, but he is silent. At last 


38 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


by degrees I grow calm, and, of course, surrender. 
The aspirant will receive a valueless subject 
from me, will write under my observation a 
needless thesis, will pass his tedious disputation 
cum laude and will get a useless and learned 
degree. 

The rings follow in endless succession, but here 
I confine myself to four. The fourth ring sounds, 
and I hear the familiar steps, the rustling dress, 
the dear voice. 

Eighteen years ago my dear friend, the 
oculist, died and left behind him a seven year 
old daughter, Katy, and sixty thousand roubles. 
By his will he made me guardian. Katy lived 
in my family till she was ten. Afterwards she 
was sent to College and lived with me only 
in her holidays in the summer months. I had 
no time to attend to her education. I watched 
only by fits and starts; so that I can say very 
little about her childhood. 

The chief thing I remember, the one I love to 
dwell upon in memory, is the extraordinary con- 
fidence which she had when she entered my house, 
when she had to have the doctor,—a con- 
fidence which was always shining in her darling 
face. She would sit in a corner somewhere with 
her face tied up, and would be sure to be absorbed 
in watching something. Whether she was watch- — 
ing me write and read books, or my wife bustling 
about, or the cook peeling the potatoes in the 
kitchen or the dog playing about—her eyes 
invariably expressed the same thing: “ Every- 


A TEDIOUS STORY 39 


thing that goes on in this world,—everything is 
beautiful and clever.”” She was inquisitive and 
adored to talk to me. She would sit at the 
table opposite me, watching my movements 
and asking questions. She is interested to 
know what I read, what I do at the University, 
if ’'m not afraid of corpses, what I do with my 
money. 

‘“* Do the students fight at the University ? ” 
she would ask. - 

*“‘ They do, my dear.” 

‘*' You make them go down on their knees ? ”’ 

ce T d o. 

And it seemed funny to her that the students 
fought and that I made them go down on their 
knees, and she laughed. She was a gentle, good, 
patient child. 

Pretty often I happened to see how something 
was taken away from her, or she was unjustly 
punished, or her curiosity was not satisfied. 
At such moments sadness would be added to 
her permanent expression of confidence—nothing 
more. I didn’t know how to take her part, 
but when I saw her sadness, I always had the 
desire to draw her close to me and comfort her 
in an old nurse’s voice: ‘‘ My darling little 
orphan ! ” 

I remember too she loved to be well dressed 
and to sprinkle herself with scents. In this 
she was like me. I also love good clothes and 
fine scents. 

I regret that I had neither the time nor the 


40 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


inclination to watch the beginnings and the 
growth of the passion which had completely 
taken hold of Katy when she was no more than 
fourteen or fifteen. I mean her passionate love 
for the theatre. When she used to come from 
the College for her holidays and live with us, 
nothing gave her such pleasure and enthusiasm 
to talk about as plays and actors. She used to 
tire us with her incessant conversation about the 
theatre. I alone hadn’t the courage to deny her 
my attention. My wife and children did not listen 
to her. When she felt the desire to share her 
raptures she would come to my study and coax: 

** Nicolai Stiepanich, do let me speak to you 
about the theatre.” 

I used to show her the time and say: 

“Til give you half an hour. Fire away!” 

Later on she used to bring in pictures of the 
actors and actresses she worshipped—whole 
dozens of them. Then several times she tried 
to take part in amateur theatricals, and finally 
when she left College she declared to me she was 
born to be an actress. 

I never shared Katy’s enthusiasms for the 
theatre. My opinion is that if a play is good 
then there’s no need to trouble the actors for 
it to make the proper impression; you can be © 
satisfied merely by reading it. If the play is 
bad, no acting will make it good. 

When I was young I often went to the theatre, 
and nowadays my family takes a box twice a 
year and carries me off for an airing there. Of 


A TEDIOUS STORY 41 


course this is not enough to give me the right to 
pass verdicts on the theatre; but I will say a 
few words about it. In my opinion the theatre 
hasn’t improved in the last thirty or forty years. 
I can’t find any more than I did then, a glass of 
clean water, either in the corridors or the foyer. 
Just as they did then, the attendants fine me 
sixpence for my coat, though there’s nothing 
illegal in wearing a warm coat in winter. Just 
as it did then, the orchestra plays quite unneces- 
sarily in the intervals, and adds a new, gratuitous 
impression to the one received from the play. 
Just as they did then, men go to the bar in the 
intervals and drink spirits. If there is no per- 
ceptible improvement in little things, it will be 
useless to look for it in the bigger things. When 
an actor, hide-bound in theatrical traditions and 
prejudices, tries to read simple straightforward 
monologue: ‘“ To be or not to be,” not at all 
simply, but with an incomprehensible and in- 
evitable hiss and convulsions over his whole 
body, or when he tries to convince me that 
Chazky, who is always talking to fools and is 
in love with a fool, is a very clever man and that 
“The Sorrows of Knowledge” is not a boring 
play,—then I get from the stage a breath of 
the same old routine that exasperated me forty 
years ago when I was regaled with classical 
lamentation and beating on the breast. Every 
time I come out of the theatre a more thorough 
conservative than I went in. 

It’s quite possible to convince the sentimental, 

D 


42 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


self-confident crowd that the theatre in its present 
state is an education. But not a man who knows 
what true education is would swallow this. I 
don’t know what it may be in fifty or a hundred 
years, but under present conditions the theatre 
can only be a recreation. But the recreation 
is too expensive for continual use, and robs the 
country of thousands of young, healthy, gifted 
men and women, who if they had not devoted 
themselves to the theatre would be excellent 
doctors, farmers, schoolmistresses, or officers. 
It robs the public of its evenings, the best time 
for intellectual work and friendly conversation. 
I pass over the waste of money and the moral 
injuries to the spectator when he sees murder, 
adultery, or slander wrongly treated on the 
stage. 

But Katy’s opinion was quite the opposite. 
She assured me that even in its present state 
the theatre is above lecture-rooms and books, 
above everything else in the world. The theatre 
is a power that unites in itself all the arts, and 
the actors are men with a mission. No separate 
art or science can act on the human soul so 
strongly and truly as the stage; and there- 
fore it is reasonable that a medium actor 
should enjoy much greater popularity than the 
finest scholar or painter. No public activity 
can give such delight and satisfaction as the 
theatrical. 

So one fine day Katy joined a theatrical com- 
pany and went away, I believe, to Ufa, taking 


A TEDIOUS STORY 43 


with her a lot of money, a bagful of rainbow 
hopes, and some very high-class views on the 
business. 

Her first letters on the journey were wonderful. 
When I read them I was simply amazed that 
little sheets of paper could contain so much 
youth, such transparent purity, such divine 
innocence, and at the same time so many 
subtle, sensible judgments, that would do honour 
to a sound masculine intelligence. The Volga, 
nature, the towns she visited, her friends, her 
successes and failures—she did not write about 
them, she sang. Every line breathed the con- 
fidence which I used to see in her face ; and with 
all this a mass of grammatical mistakes and 
hardly a single stop. 

Scarce six months passed before I received a 
highly poetical enthusiastic letter, beginning, 
‘“‘T have fallen in love.”” She enclosed a photo- 
graph of a young man with a clean-shaven face, 
in a broad-brimmed hat, with a plaid thrown 
over his shoulders. The next letters were just 
as splendid, but stops already began to appear 
and the grammatical mistakes to vanish. They 
had a strong masculine scent. Katy began to 
write about what a gcod thing it would be to 
build a big theatre somewhere in the Volga, but 
on a cooperative basis, and to attract the rich 
business-men and shipowners to the under- 
taking. There would be plenty of money, huge 
receipts, and the actors would work in partner- 
ship. . . . Perhaps all this is really a good thing, 

D 2 


44 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


but I can’t help thinking such schemes could only 
come from a man’s head. 

Anyhow for eighteen months or a couple of 
years everything seemed to be all right. Katy 
was in love, had her heart in her business and 
was happy. But later on I began to notice clear 
symptoms of a decline in her letters. It began 
with Katy complaining about her friends. 
This is the first and most ominous sign. Ifa 
young scholar or littérateur begins his career 
by complaining bitterly about ‘other scholars 
or littérateurs, it means that he is tired already 
and not fit for his business. Katy wrote to me 
that her friends would not come to rehearsals 
and never knew their parts; that they showed 
an utter contempt for the public in the absurd 
plays they staged and the manner they behaved. 
To swell the box-office receipts—the only topic 
of conversation—serious actresses degrade them- 
selves by singing sentimentalities, and tragic 
actors sing music-hall songs, laughing at husbands 
who are deceived and unfaithful wives who are 
pregnant. In short, it was amazing that the 
profession, in the provinces, was not absolutely 
dead. The marvel was that it could exist at all 
with such thin, rotten blood in its veins. 

In reply I sent Katy a long and, I confess, a 
very tedious letter. Among other things I 
wrote: “I used to talk fairly often to actors 
in the past, men of the noblest character, who 
honoured me with their friendship. From my 
conversations with them I understood that their 


A TEDIOUS STORY 45 


activities were guided rather by the whim and 
fashion of society than by the free working of 
their own minds. The best of them in their 
lifetime had to play in tragedy, in musical 
comedy, in French farce, and in pantomime ; 
yet all through they considered that they were 
treading the right path and being useful. You 
see that this means that you must look for the 
cause of the evil, not in the actors, but deeper 
down, in the art itself and the attitude of society 
towards it.” This letter of mine only made 
Katy cross. “ You and I are playing in different 
operas. I didn’t write to you about men of the 
noblest character, but about a lot of sharks who 
haven’t a spark of nobility in them. They area 
horde of savages who came on the stage only 
because they wouldn’t be allowed anywhere else. 
The only ground they have for calling themselves 
artists is their impudence. Not a single talent 
among them, but any number of incapables, 
drunkards, intriguers, and slanderers. I can’t 
tell you how bitterly I feel it that the art I love 
so much is fallen into the hands of people I 
despise. It hurts me that the best men should 
be content to look at evil from a distance and 
not want to come nearer. Instead of taking an 
active part, they write ponderous platitudes 
and useless sermons. . . .”’ and more in the same 
strain. 

A little while after I received the following : 
“IT have been inhumanly deceived. I can’t 
go on living any more. Do as you think fit 


46 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


with my money. I loved you as a father and as 
my only friend. Forgive me.” 

So it appeared that he too belonged to the 
horde of savages. Later on, I gathered from 
various hints, that there was an attempt at 
suicide. Apparently, Katy tried to poison 
herself. I think she must have been seriously 
ill afterwards, for I got the following letter from 
Yalta, where most probably the doctors had 
sent her. Her last letter to me contained a 
request that I should send her at Yalta a thousand 
roubles, and it ended with the words: “ For- 
give me for writing such a sad letter. I buried 
my baby yesterday.” After she had spent 
about a year in the Crimea she returned home. 

She had been travelling for about four years, 
and during these four years I confess that I 
occupied a strange and unenviable position in 
regard to her. When she announced to me that 
she was going on to the stage and afterwards 
wrote to me about her love; when the desire to 
spend took hold of her, as it did periodically, 
and I had to send her every now and then one 
or two thousand roubles at her request; when 
she wrote that she intended to die, and after- 
wards that her baby was dead,—I was at a loss 
every time. All my sympathy with her fate 
consisted in thinking hard and writing long 
tedious letters which might as well never have 
been written. But then I was in loco pareniis 
and I loved her as a daughter. 

Katy lives half a mile away from me now. 


A TEDIOUS STORY 47 


She took a five-roomed house and furnished it 
comfortably, with the taste that was born in her. 
If anyone were to undertake to depict her 
surroundings, then the dominating mood of the 
picture would be indolence. Soft cushions, soft 
chairs for her indolent body; carpets for her 
indolent feet; faded, dim, dull colours for her 
indolent eyes; for her indolent soul, a heap of 
cheap fans and tiny pictures on the walls, 
pictures in which novelty of execution was more 
noticeable than content; plenty of little tables 
and stands, set out with perfectly useless and 
worthless things, shapeless scraps instead of 
curtains. . . . All this, combined with a horror 
of bright colours, of symmetry, and space, be- 
tokened a perversion of the natural taste as well 
as indolence of the soul. For whole days Katy 
lies on the sofa and reads books, mostly novels 
and stories. She goes outside her house but 
once in the day, to come and see me. 

I work. Katy sits on the sofa at my side. 
She is silent, and wraps herself up in her shawl 
as though she were cold. Either because she is — 
sympathetic to me, or I because I had got used 
to her continual visits while she was still a little 
girl, her presence does not prevent me from 
concentrating on my work. At long intervals 
I ask her some question or other, mechanically, 
and she answers very curtly ; or, for a moment’s 
rest, I turn towards her and watch how she is 
absorbed in looking through some medical review 
or newspaper. And then I see that the old 


~ 


48 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


expression of confidence in her face is there no 
more. Her expression now is cold, indifferent, 
distracted, like that of a passenger who has to 
wait ajlong while for his train. She dresses as 
she used—well and simply, but carelessly. 
Evidently her clothes and her hair suffer not a 
little from the sofas and hammocks on which 
she lies for days together. And she is not 
curious any more. She doesn’t ask me ques- 
tions any more, as if she had experienced every- 
thing in life and did not expect to hear anything 
new. 

About four o’clock there is a sound of move- 
ment in the hall and the drawing-room. It’s 
Liza come back from the Conservatoire, bringing 
her friends with her. You can hear them play- 
ing the piano, trying their voices and giggling. 
Yegor is laying the table in the dining-room and 
making a noise with the plates. 

“‘ Good-bye,” says Katy. “I shan’t go in to 
see your people. They must excuse me. I 
haven’t time. Come and see me.” 

When I escort her into the hall, she looks me 
over sternly from head to foot, and says in 
vexation : 

“You get thinner and thinner. Why don’t 
you take a cure? I'll go to Sergius Fiodoro- 
vich and ask him to come. You must let him 
see you.” 

** It’s not necessary, Katy.” 

“I can’t understand why your family does 
nothing. They’re a nice lot.” 


A TEDIOUS STORY 49 


She puts on her jacket with her rush. In- 
evitably, two or three hair-pins fall out of her 
careless hair on to the floor. It’s too much 
bother to tidy her hair now ; besides she is in a 
hurry. She pushes the straggling strands of 
hair untidily under her hat and goes away. 

As soon as I come into the dining-room, my 
wife asks : 

“Was that Katy with you just now? Why 
didn’t she come to see us. It really is extra- 
ordinary. ...” 

“Mamma!” says Liza _ reproachfully, “ If 
she doesn’t want to come, that’s her affair. 
There’s no need for us to go on our knees.” 

“* Very well; but it’s insulting. To sit in the 
study for three hours, without thinking of us. 
But she can do as she likes.” 

Varya and Liza both hate Katy. This hatred 
is unintelligible to me; probably you have to be 
a woman to understand it. Ill bet my life on 
it that you'll hardly find a single one among the 
hundred and fifty young men I see almost every 
day in my audience, or the hundred old ones I 
happen to meet every week, who would be able 
to understand why women hate and abhor Katy’s 
past, her being pregnant and unmarried and her 
illegitimate child. Yet at the same time I 
cannot bring to mind a single woman or girl of 
my acquaintance who would not cherish such 
feelings, either consciously or instinctively. And 
it’s not because women are purer and more 
virtuous than men. If virtue and purity are 


50 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


not free from evil feeling, there’s precious little 
difference between them and vice. I explain it 
simply by the backward state of women’s develop- 
ment. The sorrowful sense of compassion and 
the torment of conscience, which the modern 
man experiences when he sees distress have 
much more to tell me about culture and moral 
development than have hatred and repulsion. 
The modern woman is as lachrymose and as 
coarse in heart as she was in the middle ages. 
And in my opinion those who advise her to be 
educated like a man have wisdom on their side. 

But still my wife does not like Katy, because 
she was an actress, and for her ingratitude, her 
pride, her extravagances, and all the innumerable 
vices one woman can always discover in another. 

Besides myself and my family we have two 
or three of my daughter’s girl friends to dinner 
and Alexander Adolphovich Gnekker, Liza’s 
admirer and suitor. He is a fair young man, 
not more than thirty years old, of middle height, 
very fat, broad shouldered, with reddish hair 
round his ears and a little stained moustache, 
which give his smooth chubby face the look of 
a doll’s. He wears a very short jacket, a fancy 
waistcoat, large-striped trousers, very full on 
the hip and very narrow in the leg, and brown 
boots without heels. His eyes stick out like a 
lobster’s, his tie is like a lobster’s tail, and I can’t 
help thinking even that the smell of lobster 
soup clings about the whole of this young man. 
He visits us every day ; but no one in the family 


A TEDIOUS STORY 51 


knows where he comes from, where he was 
educated, or how he lives. He cannot play or 
sing, but he has a certain connection with music 
as well as singing, for he is agent for somebody’s 
pianos, and is often at the Academy. He knows 
all the celebrities, and he manages concerts. 
He gives his opinion on music with great autho- 
rity and I have noticed that everybody hastens 
to agree with him. 

Rich men always have parasites about them. 
So do the sciences and the arts. It seems that 
there is no science or art in existence, which is 
free from such “ foreign bodies”? as this Mr. 
Gnekker. I am not a musician and perhaps I 
am mistaken about Gnekker, besides I don’t 
know him very well. But I can’t help suspect- 
ing the authority and dignity with which he 
stands beside the piano and listens when anyone 
is singing or playing. 

You may be a gentleman and a privy councillor 
a hundred times over ; but if you have a daughter 
you can’t be guaranteed against the pettinesses 
that are so often brought into your house and into 
your own humour, by courtings, engagements, 
and weddings. For instance, I cannot reconcile 
myself to my wife’s solemn expression every 
time Gnekker comes to our house, nor to those 
bottles of Chateau Lafitte, port, and sherry 
which are put on the table only for him, to 
convince him beyond doubt of the generous 
luxury in which we live. Nor can I stomach 
the staccato laughter which Liza learned at 


52 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


the Academy, and her way of screwing up her 
eyes, when men are about the house. Above all, 
I can’t understand why it is that such a creature 
should come to me every day and have dinner 
with me—a creature perfectly foreign to my 
habits, my science, and the whole tenour of my 
life, a creature absolutely unlike the men I love. 
My wife and the servants whisper mysteriously 
that that is “‘ the bridegroom,” but still I can’t 
understand why he’s there. It disturbs my 
mind just as much as if a Zulu were put next to 
me attable. Besides, it seems strange to me that 
my daughter whom I used to think of as a baby 
should be in love with that necktie, those eyes, 
those chubby cheeks. 

Formerly, I either enjoyed my dinner or was 
indifferent about it. Now it does nothing but 
bore and exasperate me. Since I was made 
an Excellency and Dean of the Faculty, for some 
reason or other my family found it necessary 
to make a thorough change in our menu and the 
dinner arrangements. Instead of the simple 
food I was used to as a student and a doctor, 
I am now fed on potage-purée, with some 
sossoulkt swimming about in it, and kidneys in 
Madeira. The title of General and my renown 
have robbed me for ever of schi and savoury 
pies, and roast goose with apple sauce, and 
bream with kasha. They robbed me as well of 
my maid servant Agasha, a funny, talkative old 
woman, instead of whom I am now waited on 
by Yegor, a stupid, conceited fellow who always 


A TEDIOUS STORY 58 


has a white glove in his right hand, The in- 
tervals between the courses are short, but they 
seem terribly long. There is nothing to fill 
them. We don’t have any more of the old 
good-humour, the familiar conversations, the 
jokes and the laughter ; no more mutual endear- 
ments, or the gaiety that used to animate my 
children, my wife, and myself when we met at the 
dinner table. For a busy man like me dinner was 
a time to rest and meet my friends, and a feast 
for my wife and children, not a very long feast, 
to be sure, but a gay and happy one, for they 
knew that for half an hour I did not belong to 
science and my students, but solely to them and 
to no one else. No more chance of getting tipsy 
on a single glass of wine, no more Agasha, no 
more bream with kasha, no more the old uproar 
to welcome our little contretemps at dinner, when 
the cat fought the dog under the table, or 
Katy’s head-band fell down her cheek into her 
soup. 

Our dinner nowadays is as nasty to describe 
as to eat. On my wife’s face there is pompous- 
ness, an assumed gravity, and the usual anxiety. 
She eyes our plates nervously: ‘‘ I see you don’t 
like the meat? ... Honestly, don’t you like 
it?”? AndI must answer, “ Don’t worry, my dear. 
The meat is very good.” She: “‘ You’re always 
taking my part, Nicolai Stiepanich. You never 
tell the truth. Why has Alexander Adolpho- 
vich eaten so little?” and the same sort of 
conversation for the whole of dinner. Liza 


54 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


laughs staccato and screws up her eyes. I 
look at both of them, and at this moment at 
dinner here I can see quite clearly that their 
inner lives have slipped out of my observation 
long ago. I feel as though once upon a time I 
lived at home with a real family, but now I am 
dining as a guest with an unreal wife and looking 
at an unreal Liza. There has been an utter 
change in both of them, while I have lost sight 
of the long process that led up to the change. 
No wonder I don’t understand anything. What 
was the reason of the change? I don’t know. 
Perhaps the only trouble is that God did not give 
my wife and daughter the strength He gave me. 
From my childhood I have been accustomed to 
resist outside influences and have been hardened 
enough. Such earthly catastrophes as fame, 
being made General, the change from comfort 
to living above my means, acquaintance with 
high society, have scarcely touched me. I have 
survived safe and sound. But it all fell 
down like an avalanche on my weak, un- 
hardened wife and Liza, and crushed them. 
Gnekker and the girls talk of fugues and 
counter-fugues ; singers and pianists, Bach and 
Brahms, and my wife, frightened of being suspected 
of musical ignorance, smiles sympathetically and 
murmurs: “‘ Wonderful . . . Isit possible? . .. 
Why?...” Gnekker eats steadily, jokes gravely, 
and listens condescendingly to the ladies’ re- 
marks. Now and then he has the desire to talk 
bad French, and then he finds it necessary for 


A TEDIOUS STORY 55 


some unknown reason to address me magnifi- 
cently, “* Votre Excellence.” 

And I am morose. Apparently I embarrass 
them all and they embarrass me. I never had 
any intimate acquaintance with class antagonism 
before, but now something of the kind torments 
me indeed. I try to find only bad traits in 
Gnekker. It does not take long and then I am 
tormented because one of my friends has not 
taken his place as bridegroom. In another way 
too his presence has a bad effect upon me. 
Usually, when I am left alone with myself or 
when I am in the company of people I love, I 
never think of my merits; and if I begin to 
think about them they seem as trivial as though 
I had become a scholar only yesterday. But 
in the presence of a man like Gnekker my merits 
appear to me like an extremely high mountain, 
whose summit is lost in the clouds, while Gnekkers 
move about the foot, so small as hardly to be 
seen. 

After dinner I go up to my study and light 
my little pipe, the only one during the whole 
day, the sole survivor of my old habit of smoking 
from morning to night. My wife comes into 
me while I am smoking and sits down to speak 
to me. Just as in the morning, I know before- 
hand what the conversation will be. 

** We ought to talk seriously, Nicolai Stiepano- 
vich,” she begins. “I mean about Liza. 
Why won’t you attend ?””. 

** Attend to what ?” 


56 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


“You pretend you don’t notice anything. 
It’s not right. It’s not right to be unconcerned. 
Gnekker has intentions about Liza. What do 
you say to that?” 

“1 can’t say he’s a bad man, because I don’t 
know him; but I’ve told you a thousand times 
already that I don’t like him.” 

** But that’s impossible . . . impossible... . 

She rises and walks about in agitation. 

‘“* It’s impossible to have such an attitude to 
a serious matter,’ she says. ‘‘ When our 
daughter’s happiness is concerned, we must put 
everything personal aside. I know you don’t 
like him. . . . Very well. . . . But if we refuse 
him now and upset everything, how can you 
guarantee that Liza won’t have a grievance 
against us for the rest of her life? Heaven knows 
there aren’t many young men nowadays. It’s 
quite likely there won’t be another chance. He 
loves Liza very much and she likes him, evidently. 
Of course he hasn’t a settled position. But 
what is there to do? Please God, he'll get a 
position in time. He comes of a good family, 
and he’s rich.” 

‘“* How did you find that out ? ” 

‘He said so himself. His father has a big 
house in Kharkov and an estate outside. You 
must certainly go to Kharkov ” 

ee Why ? 99 

‘** You'll find out there. You have acquaint- 
ances among the professors there. Id go 
myself. But I’m awoman. I can’t.” 


9° 


A TEDIOUS STORY 57 


‘“*T will not go to Kharkov,” I say morosely. 

My wife gets frightened; a tormented ex- 
pression comes over her face. 

“For God’s sake, Nicolai Stiepanich,’’ she 
implores, sobbing, ‘“‘ For God’s sake help me 
with this burden! It hurts me.” 

It is painful to look at her. 

“Very well, Varya,” I say kindly, “If you 
like—very well I’ll go to Kharkov, and do every- 
thing you want.” 

She puts her handkerchief to her eyes and goes 
to cry in her room. [I am left alone. 

A little later they bring in the lamp. The 
familiar shadows that have wearied me for years 
fall from the chairs and the lamp-shade on to 
the walls and the floor. When I look at them 
it seems that it’s night already, and the cursed 
insomnia has begun. I lie down on the bed; 
then I get up and walk about the room; then 
lie down again. My nervous excitement gener- 
ally reaches its highest after dinner, before the 
evening. For no reasonI begin to cry and hide 
my head in the pillow. All the while I am afraid 
somebody may come in; I am afraid I shall die 
suddenly ; I am ashamed of my tears; alto- 
gether, something intolerable is happening in my 
soul. I feel I cannot look at the lamp or the 
books or the shadows on the floor, or listen to the 
voices in the drawing-room any more. Some 
invisible, mysterious force pushes me rudely 
out of my house. I jump up, dress hurriedly, 
and go cautiously out into the street so that the 

E 


58 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


household shall not notice me. Where shall I 
go? 

The answer to this question has long been there 
in my brain: “‘ To Katy.” 


Ill 


As usual she is lying on the Turkish divan or 
the couch and reading something. Seeing me 
she lifts her head languidly, sits down, and gives 
me her hand. 

‘“* You are always lying down like that,” I say 
after a reposeful silence. “It’s unhealthy. 
You'd far better be doing something.” 

ce Ah ? 29 

“You'd far better be doing something, I 
say.” 

“What ? . . . A woman can be either a simple 
worker or an actress.” 

** Well, then—if you can’t become a worker, be 
an actress.’ 

She is silent. 

‘“* You had better marry,” I say, half-joking. 

‘““ There’s no one to marry: and no use if I 
did.” 

** You can’t go on living like this.” 

‘** Without a husband? As if that mattered. 
There are as many men as you like, if you only 
had the will.” 

“« This isn’t right, Katy.” 

** What isn’t right ? ” 


A TEDIOUS STORY 59 


‘** What you said just now.” 

Katy sees that I am chagrined, and desires to 
soften the bad impression. 

““Come. Let’s come here. Here.” 

She leads me into a small room, very cosy, 
and points to the writing table. 

“There. I made it for you. You'll work 
here. Come every day and bring your work 
with you. They only disturb you there at 
home. . . . Will you work here? Would you 
like to?” 

In order not to hurt her by refusing, I answer 
that I shall work with her and that I like the 
room immensely. Then we both sit down in 
the cosy room and begin to talk. 

The warmth,~ the cosy surroundings, the 
presence of a sympathetic being, rouses in me now 
not a feeling of pleasure ds it used but a strong 
desire to complain and grumble. Anyhow it 
seems to me that if I moan and complain I shall 
feel better. 

** It’s a bad business, my dear,” I begin with 
asigh. ‘‘ Very bad.” 

** What is the matter ? ” 

**T’'ll tell you what is the matter. The best 
and most sacred right of kings is the right to 
pardon. And I have always felt myself a king 
so long as I used this right prodigally. I never 
judged, I was compassionate, I pardoned every- 
one right and left. Where others protested 
and revolted I only advised and persuaded. All 
my life I’ve tried to make my society tolerable 

E 2 


60 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


to the family of students, friends and servants. 
And this attitude of mine towards people, I 
know, educated every one who came into contact 
with me. But nowIamkingnomore. There’s 
something going on in me which belongs only 
to slaves. Day and night evil thoughts roam 
about in my head, and feelings which I never 
knew before have made their home in my soul. 
I hate and despise; I’m exasperated, disturbed, 
and afraid. I’ve become strict beyond measure, 
exacting, unkind, and suspicious. Even the 
things which in the past gave me the chance of 
making an extra pun, now bring me a feeling 
of oppression. My logic has changed too. I 
used to despise money alone; now I cherish 
evil feelings, not to money, but to the rich, as if 
they were guilty. I used to hate violence and 
arbitrariness ; now I hate the people who employ 
violence, as if they alone are to blame and not 
all of us, who cannot educate one another. 
What does it all mean? If my new thoughts 
and feelings come from a change of my con- 
victions, where could the change have come 
from? Has the world grown worse and I 
better, or was I blind and indifferent before ? 
But if the change is due to the general decline 
of my physical and mental powers—I am sick 
and losing weight every day—then I’m in a 
pitiable position. It means that my new thoughts 
are abnormal and unhealthy, that I must be 
ashamed of them and consider them valueless. . .”’ 

“Sickness hasn’t anything to do with it,” 


A TEDIOUS STORY 61 


Katy interrupts. ‘‘ Your eyes are opened— 
that’s all. You’ve begun to notice things you 
didn’t want to notice before for some reason. 
My opinion is that you must break with your 
family finally first of all and then go away.” 

“* You’re talking nonsense.” 

“You don’t love them any more. Then, 
why do you behave unfairly? And is it a 
family! Mere nobodies. If they died to-day, 
no one would notice their absence to-morrow.” 

Katy despises my wife and daughter as much 
as they hateher. It’s scarcely possible nowadays 
to speak of the right of people to despise one 
another. But if you accept Katy’s point of 
view and own that such a right exists, you will 
notice that she has the same right to despise 
my wife and Liza as they have to hate her. 

“Mere nobodies!”’ she repeats. ‘‘ Did you 
have any dinner to-day? It’s a wonder they 
didn’t forget to tell you dinner was ready. I 
don’t know how they still remember that you 
exist.” 

“ Katy!” I say sternly. ‘‘ Please be quiet.” 

“You don’t think it’s fun for me to talk 
about them, do you? I wish I didn’t know 
them at all. You listen to me, dear. Leave 
everything and go away: go abroad—the 
quicker, the better.” 

“What nonsense! What about the Uni- 
versity ?” 

“And the University, too. What is it to 
you? There’s no sense in it all. You’ve been 


7~ 


62 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


lecturing for thirty years, and where are your 
pupils ? Have you many famous scholars? Count 
them up. But to increase the number of doctors 
who exploit the general ignorance and make 
hundreds of thousands,—there’s no need to be a 
good and gifted man. You aren’t wanted.” 

“My God, how bitter you are!” I get 
terrified. ‘‘ How bitter you are. Be quiet, 
or Ill go away. I can’t reply to the bitter 
things you say.” 

The maid enters and calls us to tea. Thank 
God, our conversation changes round the 
samovar. I have made my moan, and now I 
want to indulge another senile weakness—remi- 
niscences. I tell Katy about my past, to my 
great surprise with details that I never suspected 
I had kept safe in my memory. And she listens 
to me with emotion, with pride, holding her 
breath. I like particularly to tell how I once 
was a student at a seminary and how I dreamed 
of entering the University. 

“I used to walk in the seminary garden,” I 
tell her, “‘ and the wind would bring the sound 
of a song and the thrumming of an accordion 
from a distant tavern, or a troika with bells 
would pass quickly by the seminary fence. That 
would be quite enough to fill not only my breast 
with a sense of happiness, but my stomach, 
legs, and hands. As I heard the sound of the 
accordion or the bells fading away, I would see 
myself a doctor and paint pictures, one more 
glorious than another. And, you see, my 


A TEDIOUS STORY 63 


dreams came true. There were more things 
I dared to dream of. I have been a favourite 
professor thirty years, I have had excellent 
friends and an honourable reputation. I loved 
and married when I was passionately in love. 
I had children. Altogether, when I look back 
the whole of my life seems like a nice, clever 
composition. The only thing I have to do now 
is not to spoil the finale. For this, I must die 
like a man. If death is really a danger then I 
must meet it as becomes a teacher, a scholar, 
and a citizen of a Christian State. But I am 
spoiling the finale. I am drowning, and I run to 
you and beg for help, and you say: ‘ Drown. 
It’s your duty.’” 

At this point a ring at the bell sounds in 
the hall. Katy and I both recognise it and 
say : 
‘“* That must be Mikhail Fiodorovich.” 

And indeed in a minute Mikhail Fiodorovich, 
my colleague, the philologist, enters. He is a 
tall, well-built man about fifty years old, clean 
shaven, with thick grey hair and black eyebrows. - 
He is a good man and an admirable friend. He 
belongs to an old aristocratic family, a prosper- 
ous and gifted house which has played a notable 
réle in the history of our literature and education. 
He himself is clever, gifted, and highly educated, 
but not without his eccentricities. To a certain 
extent: we are all eccentric, queer fellows, but 
his eccentricities have an element of the excep- 
tional, not quite safe for his friends. Among 


64 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


the latter I know not a few who cannot see his 
many merits clearly because of his eccentricities. 

As he walks in he slowly removes his gloves 
and says in his velvety bass : 

“How do you do? Drinking tea. Just in 
time. It’s hellishly cold.” 

Then he sits down at the table, takes a glass 
of tea and immediately begins to talk. What 
chiefly marks his way of talking is his invariably 
ironical tone, a mixture of philosophy and jest, 
like Shakespeare’s grave-diggers. He always 
talks of serious matters; but never seriously. 
His opinions are always acid and provocative, 
but thanks to his tender, easy, jesting tone, it 
somehow happens that his acidity and provo- 
cativeness don’t tire one’s ears, and one very 
soon gets used to it. Every evening he brings 
along some half-dozen stories of the university 
life and generally begins with them when he sits 
down at the table. 

“O Lord,” he sighs with an amusing move- 
ment of his black eyebrows, “ there are some 
funny people in the world.” 

* Who ?”’ asks Katy. 

“I was coming down after my lecture to-day 
and I met that old idiot N on the stairs. 
He walks along, as usual pushing out that horse 
jowl of his, looking for some one to bewail his 
headaches, his wife, and his students, who won’t 
come to his lectures, ‘ Well,’ I think to my- 
self, ‘he’s seen me. It’s all up—no hope for 
ee eae 





A TEDIOUS STORY 65 


And so on in the same strain. Or he begins 
like this, 

“Yesterday I was at Z’s public lecture. Tell 
it not in Gath, but I do wonder how our alma 
mater dares to show the public such an ass, 
such a double-dyed blockhead as Z. Why he’s 
a European fool. Good Lord, you won’t find 
one like him in all Europe—not even if you looked 
in daytime, and with a lantern. Imagine it: 
he lectures as though he were sucking a stick of 
barley-sugar—su—su—su. He gets a fright 
because he can’t make out his manuscript. His 
little thoughts will only just keep moving, 
hardly moving, like a bishop riding a bicycle. 
Above all you can’t make out a word he says. 
The flies die of boredom, it’s so terrific. It can 
only be compared with the boredom in the 
great Hall at the Commemoration, when the 
traditional speech is made. To hell with it!” 

Immediately an abrupt change of subject. 

““T had to make the speech ; three years ago. 
Nicolai Stiepanovich will remember. It was 
hot, close. My full uniform was tight under my 
arms, tight as death. I read for half an hour, 
an hour, an hour and a half, two hours. ‘ Well,’ 
I thought, ‘ thank God I’ve only ten pages left.’ 
And I had four pages of peroration that I 
needn’t read at all. ‘ Only six pages then,’ I 
thought. Imagine it. I just gave a glance in 
front of me and saw sitting next to each other in 
the front row a general with a broad ribbon and 
a bishop. The poor devils were bored stiff. They 


66 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


were staring about madly to stop themselves 
from going to skep. For all that they are still 
trying to look attentive, to make some appear- 
ance of understanding what I’m reading, and 
look as though they like it. ‘ Well,’ I thought, 
‘if you like it, then you shall have it. I'll spite 
you.” So I set to and read the four pages, 
every word.” 

When he speaks only his eyes and eyebrows . 
smile as it is generally with the ironical. At such 
moments there is no hatred or malice in his 
eyes but a great deal of acuteness and that 
peculiar fox-cunning which you can catch only 
in very observant people. Further, about his 
eyes I have noticed one more peculiarity. When 
he takes his glass from Katy, or listens to her 
remarks, or follows her with a glance as she goes 
out of the room for a little while, then I catch 
in his look something humble, prayerful, 
PRLS: oa: 

The maid takes the samovar away and puts 
on the table a big piece of cheese, some fruit, 
and a bottle of Crimean champagne, a thoroughly 
bad wine which Katy got to like when she lived 
in the Crimea. Mikhail Fiodorovich takes two 
packs of cards from the shelves and sets them 
out for patience. If one may believe his assur- 
ances, some games of patience demand a great 
power of combination and concentration. Never- 
theless while he sets out the cards he amuses 
himself by talking continually. Katy follows his 
cards carefully, hekping him more by mimicry 


A TEDIOUS STORY 67 


than words. In the whole evening she drinks 
no more than two small glasses of wine, I drink 
only a quarter of a glass, the remainder of the 
bottle falls to Mikhail Fiodorovich, who can 
drink any amount without ever getting drunk. 

During patience we solve all kinds of questions, 
mostly of the lofty order, and our dearest love, 
science, comes off second best. 

“* Science, thank God, has had her day,” says 
Mikhail Fiodorovich very slowly. ‘“‘She has 
had her swan-song. Ye-es. Mankind has begun 
to feel the desire to replace her by something 
else. She was grown from the soil of prejudice, 
fed by prejudices, and is now the same quin- 
tessence of prejudices as were her bygone grand- 
mothers: alchemy, metaphysics and philosophy. 
As between European scholars and the Chinese 
who have no sciences at all the difference is 
merely trifling, a matter only of externals. 
The Chinese had no scientific knowledge, but 
what have they lost by that ? ” 

“Flies haven’t any scientific knowledge 
either,”’ I say ; ‘“‘ but what does that prove ? ” 

** Tt’s no use getting angry, Nicolai Stiepanich. 
I say this only between ourselves. I’m more 
cautious than you think. I shan’t proclaim it 
from the housetops, God forbid! The masses 
still keep alive a prejudice that science and art 
are superior to agriculture and commerce, 
superior to crafts. Our persuasion makes a 
living from this prejudice. It’s not for you 
and me to destroy it. God forbid!” 


68 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


During patience the younger generation also 
comes in for it. 

** Our public is degenerate nowadays,” Mikhail 
Fiodorovich sighs. ‘“‘ I don’t speak of ideals and 
such things, I only ask that they should be able 
to work and think decently. ‘Sadly I look at 
the men of our time ’—it’s quite true in this 
connection.” 

“Yes, they’re frightfully degenerate,” Katy 
agrees. ‘“‘ Tell me, had you one single eminent 
person under you during the last five or ten 
years ?”’ 

““T don’t know how it is with the other 
professors,—but somehow I don’t recollect that 
it ever happened to me.” 

““In my lifetime I’ve seen a great many of 
your students and young scholars, a great many 
actors. ... What happened? I never once 
had the luck to meet, not a hero or a man of 
talent, but an ordinarily interesting person. 
Everything’s dull and incapable, swollen and 
pretentious. .. .” 

All these conversations about degeneracy give 
me always the impression that I have unwit- 
tingly overheard an unpleasant conversation 
about my daughter. I feel offended because the 
indictments are made wholesale and are based 
upon such ancient hackneyed commonplaces 
and such penny-dreadful notions as degeneracy, 
lack of ideals, or comparisons with the glorious 
past. Any indictment, even if it’s made in a 
company of ladies, should be formulated with 


A TEDIOUS STORY 69 


all possible precision; otherwise it isn’t an 
indictment, but an empty calumny, unworthy 
of decent people. 

I am an old man, and have served for the 
last thirty years; but I don’t see any sign 
either of degeneracy or the lack of ideals. 
I don’t find it any worse now than before. 
My porter, Nicolas, whose experience in this 
case has its value, says that students nowadays 
are neither better nor worse than their pre- 
decessors. 

If I were asked what was the thing I did not 
like about my present pupils, I wouldn’t say 
offhand or answer at length, but with a certain 
precision. I know their defects and there’s no 
need for me to take refuge in a mist of common- 
places. I don’t like the way they smoke, and 
drink spirits, and marry late; or the way they 
are careless and indifferent to the point of allow- 
ing students to go hungry in their midst, and not 
paying their debts into “The Students’ Aid 
Society.””. They are ignorant of modern lan- 
guages and express themselves incorrectly in 
Russian. Only yesterday my colleague, the 
hygienist, complained to me that he had to 
lecture twice as often because of their in- 
competent knowledge of physics and their 
complete ignorance of meteorology. They are 
readily influenced by the most modern writers, 
and some of those not the best, but they are 
absolutely indifferent to classics like Shakespeare, 
Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and Pascal; and 


~~ 


70 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


their worldly unpracticality shows itself mostly 
in their inability to distinguish between great 
and small. They solve all difficult questions 
which have a more or less social character 
(emigration, for instance) by getting up sub- 
scriptions, but not by the method of scientific 
investigation and experiment, though this is at 
their full disposal, and, above all, corresponds 
to their vocation. They readily become house- 
doctors, assistant house-doctors, clinical assis- 
tants, or consulting doctors, and they are pre- 
pared to keep these positions until they are 
forty, though independence, a sense of freedom, 
and personal initiative are quite as necessary in 
science, as, for instance, in art or commerce. 
I have pupils and listeners, but I have no 
helpers or successors. Therefore I love them 
and am concerned for them, but I’m not proud 
of them . . . and so on. 

However great the number of such defects 
may be, it’s only in a cowardly and timid person 
that they give rise to pessimism and distraction. 
All of them are by nature accidental and transi- 
tory, and are completely dependent on the 
conditions of life. Ten years will be enough for 
them to disappear or give place to new and 
different defects, which are quite indispensable, 
but will in their turn give the timid a fright. 
Students’ shortcomings often annoy me, but the 
annoyance is nothing in comparison with the 
joy I have had these thirty years in speaking 
with my pupils, lecturing to them, studying their 


A TEDIOUS STORY 71 


relations and comparing them with people of 
a different class. 

Mikhail Fiodorovich is a slanderer. Katy 
listens and neither of them notices how deep is 
the pit into which they are drawn by such an 
outwardly innocuous recreation as condemning 
one’s neighbours. They don’t realise how a 
simple conversation gradually turns into mockery 
and derision, or how they both begin even to 
employ the manners of calumny. 

‘““'There are some queer types to be found,” 
says Mikhail Fiodorovich. ‘* Yesterday I went 
to see our friend Yegor Pietrovich. There I 
found a student, one of your medicos, a third- 
year man, I think. His face . . . rather in the 
style of Dobroliubov—the stamp of profound 
thought on his brow. We began to talk. ‘My 
dear fellow—an extraordinary business. I’ve 
just read that some German or other—can’t 
remember his name—has extracted a new 
alkaloid from the human _ brain — idiotine.’ 
Do you know he really believed it, and pro- 
duced an expression of respect on his face, 
as much as to say, ‘See, what a power we 
are.’ *? 

** The other day I went to the theatre. I sat 
down. Just in front of me in the next row two 
people were sitting: one, ‘one of the chosen,’ 
evidently a law student, the other a whiskery 
medico. The medico was as drunk as a cobbler. 
Not an atom of attention to the stage. Dozing 
and nodding. But the moment some actor 


72 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


began to deliver a loud monologue, or just raised 
his voice, my medico thrills, digs his neighbour 
in the ribs. ‘ What’s he say? Something 
no—ble?’ ‘Noble,’ answers ‘the chosen.’ 
‘Brrravo!’ bawls the medico. ‘ No—ble. 
Bravo.’ You see the drunken blockhead didn’t 
come to the theatre for art, but for something 
noble. He wants nobility.” 

Katy listens and laughs. Her laugh is rather 
strange. She breathes out in swift, rhythmic, 
and regular alternation with her inward breath- 
ing. It’s as though she were playing an accor- 
dion. Of her face, only her nostrils laugh. My 
heart fails me. I don’t know what to say. I 
lose my temper, crimson, jump up from my seat 
and cry: 

** Be quiet, won’t you? Why do you sit here 
like two toads, poisoning the air with your 
breath ? I’ve had enough.”’ 

In vain I wait for them to stop their slanders. 
I prepare to go home. And it’s time, too. 
Past ten o’clock. 

“T’ll sit here a little longer,” says Mikhail 
Fiodorovich, ‘‘ if you give me leave, Ekaterina 
Vladimirovna ? ” 

** You have my leave,’’ Katy answers. 

‘* Bene. In that case, order another bottle, 
please.” 

Together they escort me to the hall with 
candles in their hands. While I’m putting on 
my overcoat, Mikhail Fiodorovich says : 

“ You’ve grown terribly thin and old lately. 


A TEDIOUS STORY 73 


Nicolai Stiepanovich. What’s the matter with 
you? Ii? 

** Yes, a little.” 

** And he will not look after himself,” Katy 
puts in sternly. 

“Why don’t you look after yourself? How 
can you go on like this? God helps those who 
help themselves, my dearman. Give my regards 
to your family and make my excuses for not 
coming. One of these days, before I go abroad, 
Ill come to say good-bye. Without fail. I’m 
off next week.” 

I came away from Katy’s irritated, frightened 
by the talk about my illness and discontented 
with myself. “And why,’ I ask myself, 
*‘ shouldn’t I be attended by one of my col- 
leagues?” Instantly I see how my friend, after 
sounding me, will go to the window silently, 
think a little while, turn towards me and say, 
indifferently, trying to prevent me from reading 
the truth in his face: “ At the moment I don’t 
see anything particular ; but still, cher confrére, 
I would advise you to break off your work...” 
And that will take my last hope away. 

Who doesn’t have hopes? Nowadays, when 
I diagnose and treat myself, I sometimes hope 
that my ignorance deceives me, that I am mis- 
taken about the albumen and sugar which I 
find, as well as about my heart, and also about 
the anasarca which I have noticed twice in 
the morning. While I read over the therapeutic 
text-books again with the eagerness of a hypo- 

F 


74 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


chondriac, and change the prescriptions every 
day, I still believe that I will come across some- 
thing hopeful. How trivial it all is! 

Whether the sky is cloudy all over or the moon 
and stars are shining in it, every time I come back 
home I look at it and think that death will take 
me soon. Surely at that moment my thoughts 
should be as deep as the sky, as bright, as striking 
-.. but no! I think of myself, of my wife, 
Liza, Gnekker, the students, people in general. 
My thoughts are not good, they are mean; I 
juggle with myself, and at this moment my atti- 
tude towards life can be expressed in the words 
the famous Arakheev wrote in one of his intimate 
letters: ‘* All good in the world is inseparably 
linked to bad, and there is always more bad 
than good.” Which means that everything is 
ugly, there’s nothing to live for, and the sixty- 
two years I have lived out must be counted as 
lost. I surprise myself in these thoughts and 
try to convince myself they are accidental and 
temporary and not deeply rooted in me, but I 
think immediately : 

“ If that’s true, why am I drawn every evening 
to those two toads.” And I swear to myself 
never to go to Katy any more, though I know I 
will go to her again to-morrow. 

As I pull my door bell and go upstairs, I feel 
already that I have no family and no desire to 
return to it. It is plain my new, Arakheev. 
thoughts are not accidental or temporary in me, 
but possess my whole being. With a bad con- 


A TEDIOUS STORY 75 


science, dull, indolent, hardly able to move my 
limbs, as though I had a ten ton weight upon me, 
I lie down in my bed and soon fall asleep. 

And then—insomnia. 


IV 


The summer comes and life changes. 

One fine morning Liza comes in to me and says 
in a joking tone: 

““Come, Your Excellency. It’s all ready.” 

They lead My Excellency into the street, put 
me into a cab and drive me away. For want of 
occupation I read the signboards backwards 
asI go. The word “Tavern” becomes “‘ Nrevat.”’ 
That would do for a baron’s name: Baroness 
Nrevat. Beyond, I drive across the field by the 
cemetery, which produces no impression upon 
me whatever, though I'll soon lie there. After a 
two hours’ drive, My Excellency is led into the 
ground-floor of the bungalow, and put into a 
small, lively room with a light-blue paper. 

Insomnia at night as before, but I am no more 
wakeful in the morning and don’t listen to my 
wife, but lie in bed. I don’t sleep, but I am in 
a sleepy state, half-forgetfulness, when you know 
you are not asleep, but have dreams. I get up 
in the afternoon, and sit down at the table by 
force of habit, but now I don’t work any more 
but amuse myself with French yellow-backs 
sent me by Katy. Of course it would be more 

F 2 


76 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


patriotic to read Russian authors, but to tell the 
truth I’m not particularly disposed to them. 
Leaving out two or three old ones, all the modern 
literature doesn’t seem to me to be literature 
but a unique home industry which exists only 
to be encouraged, but the goods are bought 
with reluctance. The best of these home- 
made goods can’t be called remarkable and it’s 
impossible to praise it sincerely without a saving 
**but’’?; and the same must be said of all the 
literary novelties I’ve read during the last ten 
or fifteen years. Not one remarkable, and you 
can’t dispense with “ but.”” They have clever- 
ness, nobility, and no talent; talent, nobility, 
and no cleverness; or finally, talent, cleverness, 
but no nobility. 

I would not say that French books have talent, 
cleverness, and nobility. Nor do they satisfy me. 
But they are not so boring as the Russian; and 
it is not rare to find in them the chief constituent 
of creative genius—the sense of personal freedom, 
which is lacking to Russian authors. I do not 
recall one single new book in which from the 
very first page the author did not try to tie 
himself up in all manner of conventions and 
contracts with his conscience. One is frightened 
to speak of the naked body, another is bound 
hand and foot by psychological analysis, a 
third must have “ a kindly attitude to his fellow- 
men,” the fourth heaps up whole pages with 
descriptions of nature on purpose to avoid any 
suspicion of a tendency. . . . One desires to be 


A TEDIOUS STORY 77 


in his books a bourgeois at all costs, another at all 
costs an aristocrat. Deliberation, cautiousness, 
cunning: but no freedom, no courage to write as 
one likes, and therefore no creative genius. 

All this refers to belles-letires, so-called. 

As for serious articles in Russian, on sociology, 
for instance, or art and so forth, I don’t read 
them, simply out of timidity. For some reason 
in my childhood and youth I had a fear of porters 
and theatre attendants, and this fear has re- 
mained with me up till now. Even now I am 
afraid of them. It is said that only that which 
one cannot understand seems terrible. And in- 
deed it is very difficult to understand why hall- 
porters and theatre attendants are so pompous 
and haughty and importantly polite. When I 
read serious articles, I have exactly the same 
indefinable fear. Their portentous gravity, their 
playfulness, like an archbishop’s, their over- 
familiar attitude to foreign authors, their capa- 
city for talking dignified nonsense—“ filling a 
vacuum with emptiness ’’—it is all inconceivable 
to me and terrifying, and quite unlike the 
modesty and the calm and gentlemanly tone to 
which I am accustomed when reading our writers 
on medicine and the natural sciences. Not only 
articles ; I have difficulty also in reading trans- 
lations even when they are edited by serious 
Russians. The presumptuous benevolence of the 
prefaces, the abundance of notes by the trans- 
lator (which prevents one from concentrating), 
the parenthetical queries and sics, which are so 


78 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


liberally scattered over the book or the article 
by the translator—seem to me an assault on 
the author’s person, as well as on my independ- 
ence as a reader. 

Once I was invited as an expert to the High 
Court. In the interval one of my fellow-experts 
called my attention to the rude behaviour of 
the public prosecutor to the prisoners, among 
whom were two women intellectuals. I don’t 
think I exaggerated at all when I replied to my 
colleague that he was not behaving more rudely 
than authors of serious articles behave to one 
another. Indeed their behaviour is so rude that 
one speaks of them with bitterness. They be- 
have to each other or to the writers whom they 
criticise either with too much deference, careless 
of their own dignity, or, on the other hand, they 
treat them much worse than I have treated 
Gnekker, my future son-in-law, in these notes 
and thoughts of mine. Accusations of irresponsi- 
bility, of impure intentions, of any kind of 
crime even, are the usual adornment of serious 
articles. And this, as our young medicos love 
to say in their little articles—quite ultima ratio. 
Such an attitude must necessarily be reflected 
in the character of the young generation of 
writers, and therefore I’m not at all surprised 
that in the new books which have been added 
to our belles lettres in the last ten or fifteen years, 
the heroes drink a great deal of vodka and the 
heroines are not sufficiently chaste. 

I read French books and look out of the 


A TEDIOUS STORY 79 


window, which is open—I see the pointed 
palings of my little garden, two or three skinny 
trees, and there, beyond the garden, the road, 
fields, then a wide strip of young pine-forest. 
I often delight in watching a little boy and girl, 
both white-haired and ragged, climb on the 
garden fence and laugh at my baldness. In 
their shining little eyes I read, “Come out, 
thou baldhead.” These are almost the only 
people who don’t care a bit about my reputation 
or my title. 

I don’t have visitors everyday now. [ll 
mention only the visits of Nicolas and Piotr 
Ignatievich. Nicolas comes to me usually on 
holidays, pretending to come on business, but 
really to see me. He is very hilarious, a thing 
which never happens to him in the winter. 

‘“* Well, what have you got to say?” I ask 
him, coming out into the passage. 

“Your Excellency!’ he says, pressing his 
hand to his heart and looking at me with a 
lover’s rapture. ‘‘ Your Excellency! So help 
me God! God strike me where I stand! 
Gaudeamus igitur juvenestus.” 

And he kisses me eagerly on the shoulders, 
on my sleeves, and buttons. 

“Is everything all right over there?” I ask. 

“Your Excellency! I swear to God...” 

He never stops swearing, quite unnecessarily, 
and I soon get bored, and send him to the 
kitchen, where they give him dinner. Piotr 
Ignatievich also comes on holidays specially 


80 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


to visit me and communicate his thoughts to 
me. He usually sits by the table in my room, 
modest, clean, judicious, without daring to cross 
his legs or lean his elbows on the table, all the 
while telling me in a quiet, even voice what he 
considers very piquant items of news gathered 
from journals and pamphlets. 

These items are all alike and can be reduced 
to the following type: A Frenchman made a 
discovery. Another—a German—exposed him 
by showing that this discovery had been made as 
long ago as 1870 by some American. Then a 
third—also a German—outwitted them both by 
showing that both of them had been confused, 
by taking spherules of air under a microscope for 
dark pigment. Even when he wants to make 
me laugh, Piotr Ignatievich tells his story at 
great length, very much as though he were 
defending a thesis, enumerating his literary 
sources in detail, with every effort to avoid 
mistakes in the dates, the particular number of 
the journal and the names. Moreover, he does 
not say Petit simply but inevitably, Jean 
Jacques Petit. If he happens to stay to dinner, 
he will tell the same sort of piquant stories and 
drive all the company to despondency. If 
Gnekker and Liza begin to speak of fugues and 
counter-fugues in his presence he modestly 
lowers his eyes, and his face falls. He is ashamed 
that such trivialities should be spoken of in the 
presence of such serious men as him and me. 

In my present state of mind five minutes are 


A TEDIOUS STORY 81 


enough for him to bore me as though I had seen 
and listened to him for a whole eternity. I hate 
the poor man. I wither away beneath his quiet, 
even voice and his bookish language. His 
stories make me stupid. . . . He cherishes the 
kindliest feelings towards me and talks to me only 
to give me pleasure. I reward him by staring 
at his face as if I wanted to hypnotise him, and 
thinking “‘Go away. Go, go....” But he 
is proof against my mental suggestion and sits, 
Site, sites ess 

While he sits with me I cannot rid myself 
of the idea: ‘‘ When I die, it’s quite possible 
that he will be appointed in my place.” Then 
my poor audience appears to me as an oasis 
where the stream has dried up, and I am unkind 
to Piotr Ignatievich, and silent and morose as 
if he were guilty of such thoughts and not I 
myself. When he begins, as usual, to glorify 
the German scholars, I no longer jest good- 
naturedly, but murmur sternly : 

““ They’re fools, your Germans...” 

It’s like the late Professor Nikita Krylov when 
he was bathing with Pirogov at Reval. He got 
angry with the water, which was very cold, and 
swore about “ These scoundrelly Germans.” I 
behave badly to Piotr Ignatievich; and it’s’ 
only when he is going away and I see through the 
window his grey hat disappearing behind the 
garden fence, that I want to call him back and 
say: “‘ Forgive me, my dear fellow.” 

The dinner goes yet more wearily than in 


82 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


winter. The same Gnekker, whom I now hate 
and despise, dines with me every day. Before, I 
used to suffer his presence in silence, but now I 
say biting things to him, which make my wife 
and Liza blush. Carried away by an evil 
feeling, I often say things that are merely 
foolish, and don’t know why Isay them. Thus it 
happened once that after looking at Gnekker 
contemptuously for a long while, I suddenly 
fired off, for no reason at all: 


“Eagles than barnyard-fowls may lower 
bend ; 
But fowls shall never to the heav’ns ascend,” 


More’s the pity that the fowl Gnekker shows 
himself more clever than the eagle professor. 
Knowing my wife and daughter are on his side 
he maintains these tactics. He replies to my 
shafts with a condescending silence (“‘ The old 
man’s off his head. . . . What’s the good of 
talking to him?’’), or makes good-humoured 
fun of me. It is amazing to what depths of 
pettiness aman may descend. During the whole 
dinner I can dream how Gnekker will be shown 
to be an adventurer, how Liza and my wife 
will realise their mistake, and I will tease them 
—ridiculous dreams like these at a time when I 
have one foot in the grave. 

Now there occur misunderstandings, of a 
kind which I formerly knew only by hearsay. 
Though it is painful I will describe one which 
occurred after dinner the other day. 


A TEDIOUS STORY 83 


I sit in my room smoking a little pipe. Enters 
my wife, as usual, sits down and begins to talk. 
What a good idea it would be to go to Kharkov 
now while the weather is warm and there is the 
time, and inquire what kind of man our Gnekker 
is. 

“Very well. Ill go,” I agree. 

My wife gets up, pleased with me, and walks 
to the door; but immediately returns : 

‘“* By-the bye, I’ve one more favour to ask. 
I know you'll be angry; but it’s my duty to 
warn you ..~. . Forgive me, Nicolai,—but all 
our neighbours have begun to talk about the 
way you go to Katy’s continually. I don’t deny 
that she’s clever and educated. It’s pleasant to 
spend the time with her. But at your age 
and in your position it’s rather strange to find 
pleasure in her society. . . . Besides she has a 
reputation enough to. .. .” 

All my blood rushes instantly from my brain. 
My eyes flash fire. I catch hold of my hair, 
and stamp and cry, in a voice that is not 
mine : 

** Leave me alone, leave me, leave me. .. .” 

My face is probably terrible, and my voice 
strange, for my wife suddenly gets pale, and 
calls aloud, with a despairing voice, also not her 
own. At our cries rush in Liza and Gnekker, 
then Yegor. 

My feet grow numb, as though they did not 
‘exist. I feel that I am falling into somebody’s 
arms. Then I hear crying for a little while 


84 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


and sink into a faint which lasts for two or three 
hours. 

Now for Katy. She comes to see me before 
evening every day, which of course must be 
noticed by my neighbours and my friends. After 
a minute she takes me with her for a drive. She 
has her own horse and a new buggy she bought 
thissummer. Generally she lives like a princess. 
She has taken an expensive detached bungalow 
with a big garden, and put into it all her town 
furniture. She has two maids and a coachman. 
I often ask her : 

“Katy, what will you live on when you’ve 
spent all your father’s money ? ” 

‘** We’ll see, then,’’ she answers. 

‘* But this money deserves to be treated more 
seriously, my dear. It was earned by a good 
man and honest labour.”’ 

** 'You’ve told me that before. I know.” 

First we drive by the field, then by a young 
pine forest, which you can see from my window. 
Nature seems to me as beautiful as she used, 
although the devil whispers to me that all these 
pines and firs, the birds and white clouds in the 
sky will not notice my absence in three or four 
months when I am dead. Katy likes to take 
the reins, and it is good that the weather is fine 
and I am sitting by her side. She is in a happy 
mood, and does not say bitter things. 

** You’re a very good man, Nicolai,” she says. 
“You are a rare bird. There’s no actor who 
could play your part. Mine or Mikhail’s, for 


A TEDIOUS STORY 85 


instance—even a bad actor could manage, but 
yours—there’s nobody. I envy you, envy you 
terribly! What am I? What?” 

She thinks for a moment, and asks : 

“1’m a negative phenomenon, aren’t I? ” 

** Yes,” I answer. 

“H’m . . . what’s to be done then?” 

What answer can I give? It’s easy to say 
*“* Work,” or “‘ Give your property to the poor,”’ 
or “‘ Know yourself,” and because it’s so easy to 
say this I don’t know what to answer. 

My therapeutist colleagues, when teaching 
methods of cure, advise one ‘“‘ to individualise 
each particular case.’” This advice must be 
followed in order to convince one’s self that the 
remedies recommended in the text-books as 
the best and most thoroughly suitable as a 
general rule, are quite unsuitable in particular 
cases. It applies to moral affections as well. 

But I must answer something. So I say: 

‘“*'You’ve too much time on your hands, my 
dear. You must take up something. ... In 
fact, why shouldn’t you go on the stage again, 
if you have a vocation.” 

“i can’t.” 

** You have the manner and tone of a victim. 
I don’t like it, my dear. You have yourself to 
blame. Remember, you began by getting angry 
with people and things in general ; but you never 
did anything to improve either of them. You 
didn’t put up a struggle against the evil. You 
got tired. You’re not a victim of the struggle 


86 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


but of your own weakness. Certainly you were 
young then and inexperienced. But now every- 
thing can be different. Come on, be an actress. 
You will work ; you will serve in the temple of 
TE 

“Don’t be so clever, Nicolai,’ she inter- 
rupts. “ Let’s agree once for all: let’s speak 
about actors, actresses, writers, but let us leave 
art out of it. You’re a rare and excellent man. 
But you don’t understand enough about art to 
consider it truly sacred. You have no flair, no 
ear for art. You’ve been busy all your life, 
and you never had time to acquire the flair. 
Really . ..I don’t love these conversations 
about art!’ she continues nervously. “ I don’t 
lovethem. They’ve vulgarised it enough already, 
thank you.” 

**Who’s vulgarised it ?.” 

“They vulgarised it by their drunkenness, 
newspapers by their over-familiarity, clever 
people by philosophy.” 

** 'What’s philosophy got to do with it?” 

““A great deal. If a man philosophises, it 
means he. doesn’t understand.” 

So that it should not come to bitter words, I 
hasten to change the subject, and then keep 
silence for a long while. It’s not till we 
come out of the forest and drive towards 
Katy’s bungalow, I return to the subject and 
ask : 

“Still, you haven’t answered me why you 
don’t want to go on the stage?” 


A TEDIOUS STORY 87 


** Really, it’s cruel,’ she cries out, and sud- 
denly blushes all over. ‘“‘ You want me to tell 
you the truth outright. Very wellif ... if you 
will have it! I’ve no talent! No talent and 

. much ambition! There you are!” 

After this confession, she turns her face away 
from me, and to hide the trembling of her hands, 
tugs at the reins. 

As we approach her bungalow, from a distance 
we see Mikhail already, walking about by the 
gate, impatiently awaiting us. 

“‘ This Fiodorovich again,” Katy says with 
annoyance. ‘Please take him away from 
me. I’m sick of him. He’s flat... . Let him 
go to the deuce.” 

Mikhail Fiodorovich ought to have gone 
abroad long ago, but: he has postponed his 
departure every week. There have been some 
changes in him lately. He’s suddenly got 
thin, begun to be affected by drink—a thing 
that never happened to him before, and his 
black eyebrows have begun to get grey. 
When our buggy stops at the gate he cannot 
hide his joy and impatience. Anxiously 
he helps Katy and me from the buggy, hastily 
asks us questions, laughs, slowly rubs his hands, 
and that gentle, prayerful, pure something that 
I used to notice only in his eyes is now poured 
over all his face. He is happy and at the same 
time ashamed of his happiness, ashamed of his 
habit of coming to Katy’s every evening, and he 
finds it necessary to give a reason for his coming, 


88 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


some obvious absurdity, like: “I was passing 
on business, and I thought I’d just drop in for a 
second.” 

All three of us go indoors. First we drink tea, 
then our old friends, the two packs of cards, 
appear on the table, with a big piece of cheese, 
some fruit, and a bottle of Crimean champagne. 
The subjects of conversation are not new, but 
all exactly the same as they were in the winter. 
The university, the students, literature, the 
theatre—all of them come in for it. The air 
thickens with slanders, and grows more close. 
It is poisoned by the breath, not of two toads as 
in winter, but now by all three. Besides the 
velvety, baritone laughter and the accordion- 
like giggle, the maid who waits upon us hears 
also the unpleasant jarring laugh of a musical 
comedy general: “* He, he, he!” 


Vv 


There sometimes come fearful nights with 
thunder, lightning, rain, and wind, which the 
peasants call ‘‘ sparrow-nights.” There was one 
such sparrow-night in my own personal life. . . . 

I wake after midnight and suddenly leap out 
of bed. Somehow it seems to me that I am going 
to die immediately. I do not know why, for 
there is no single sensation in my body which 
points to a quick end; but a terror presses on 
my soul as though I had suddenly seen a huge, 
ill-boding fire in the sky. 


A TEDIOUS STORY 89 


I light the lamp quickly and drink some water 
straight out of the decanter. Then f hurry to 
the window. The weather is magnificent. The 
air smells of hay and some delicious thing 
besides. I see the spikes of my garden fence. 
the sleepy starveling trees by “the window, the 
road, the dark strip of forest. There is a calm 
and brilliant moon in the sky and not a single 
cloud. Serenity. Not a leaf stirs. To me it 
seems that everything is looking at me and 
listening for me to die. / 

Dread seizes me. I shut the window and run 
to the bed. I feel for my pulse. I cannot find 
it in my wrist; I seek it in my temples, my chin, 
my hand again. They are all cold and slippery 
with sweat. My breathing comes quicker and 
quicker; my body trembles, all my bowels are 
stirred, and my face and forehead feel as though 
a cobweb had settled on them. 

What shall I do? Shall I call my family ? 
No use. I do not know what my wife and Liza 
will do when they come in to me. 

I hide my head under the pillow, shut my eyes 
and wait, wait... My spine is cold. It 
almost contracts within me. And I feel that 
death will approach me only from behind, very 
quietly. 

** Kivi, kivi.”” A squeak sounds in the stillness 
of the night. I do not know whether it is, in 
my heart or in the street. 

God, how awful! I would drink some more 
water; but now I dread opening my eyes, and 

G 


90 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


fear to raise my head. The terror is unaccount- 
able, animal. I cannot understand why I am 
afraid. Is it because I want to live, or because 
a new and unknown pain awaits me ? 

Upstairs, above the ceiling, a moan, then a 
laugh ... I listen. A little after steps sound 
on the staircase. Someone hurries down, then 
up again. In a minute steps sound downstairs — 
again. Someone stops by my door and listens. 

** Who's there?” I call. 

The door opens. I open my eyes boldly 
and see my wife. Her face is pale and her eyes 
red with weeping. 

**'You’re not asleep, Nicolai Stiepanovich ? ” 
she asks. 

What 44 itt” 

‘“* For God’s sake go down to Liza. Something 
is wrong with her.” 

“Very well. . . with pleasure,” I murmur, 
very glad that Iam notalone. ‘“ Very well... 
immediately.” 

As I follow my wife I hear what she tells me, 
and from agitation understand not a word. 
Bright spots from her candle dance over the 
steps of the stairs; our long shadows tremble ; 
my feet catch in the skirts of my dressing- 
gown. My breath goes, and it seems to me that 
someone is chasing me, trying to seize my back. 
**T shall die here on the staircase, this second,” 
I think, “ this second.”” But we have passed 
the staircase, the dark hall with the Italian 
window and we go into Liza’s room. She sits 


A TEDIOUS STORY 91 


in bed in her chemise; her bare legs hang down 
and she moans. 

‘Oh, my God .. . oh, my God!” she mur- 
murs, half shutting her eyes from our candles. 
**T can’t, I can’t.” 

** Liza, my child,” I say, “‘ what’s the matter?” 

Seeing me, she calls out and falls on my neck. 

‘* Papa darling,” she sobs. ‘“* Papa dearest... 
my sweet. I don’t know what it is... It 
hurts.”” 

She embraces me, kisses me and lisps endear- 
ments which I heard her lisp when she was still 
a baby. 

‘““Be calm, my child. God’s with you,” I 
say. ‘“‘ You mustn’t cry. Something hurts me 
too.” 

I try to cover her with the bedclothes; my 
wife gives her to drink; and both of us jostle in 
‘confusion round the bed. My shoulders push 
into hers, and at that moment I remember how 
we used to bathe our children. 

** But help her, help her!” my wife implores. 
*“Do something!’ And what can I do? 
Nothing. There is some weight on the girl’s 
soul; but I understand nothing, know nothing 
and can only murmur: 

“It’s nothing, nothing . . . It will pass . 
Sleep, sleep.” 

As if on purpose a dog suddenly howls in the 
yard, at first low and irresolute, then aloud, in 
two voices. I never put any value on such signs 
as dogs’ whining or screeching owls; but now 

G 2 


92 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


my heart contracts painfully, and I hasten to 
explain the howling. 

‘“* Nonsense,” I think. “It’s the bithuelie of 
one organism on another, My great nervous 
strain was transmitted to my wife, to Liza, and 
to the dog. That’s all. Such transmissions 
explain presentiments and previsions.”’ 

A little later when I return to my room to 
write a prescription for Liza I no longer think 
that I shall die soon. My soul simply feels 
heavy and dull, so that I am even sad that I 
did not die suddenly. For a long while I stand 
motionless in the middle of the room, ponder- 
ing what I shall prescribe for Liza; but the 
moans above the ceiling are silent and I decide 
not to write a prescription, but stand there 
still. 

There is a dead silence, a silence, as one man 
wrote, that rings in one’s ears. The time goes 
slowly. The bars of moonshine on the window- 
sill do not move from their place, as though 
congealed . . . The dawn is still far away. 

But the garden-gate creaks ; someone steals 
in, and strips a twig from the starveling trees, 
and cautiously knocks with it on my window. 

‘** Nicolai Stiepanovich!”’ I hear a whisper. 
“Nicolai Stiepanovich ! ” 

I open the window, and I think that I am 
dreaming. Under the window, close against the 
wall stands a woman in a black dress. She is 
brightly lighted by the moon and looks at me 
with wide eyes. Her face is pale, stern and 


A TEDIOUS STORY 93 


fantastic in the moon, like marble. Her chin © 
trembles. 

“itis I...” she sayg74 i. eet’ 

In the moon all women’s eyes are big and 
black, people are taller and paler. Probably 
that is the reason why I did not recognise her 
in the first moment. 

“* What’s the matter ? ” 

‘“‘ Forgive me,” she says. “I suddenly felt 
so dreary . . . I could not bear it. So I came 
here. There’s alight in your window... andI 
decided to knock . . . Forgive me . . . Ah, if 
you knew how dreary I felt! What are you 
doing now?” . 

** Nothing. Insomnia.” 

Her eyebrows lift, her eyes shine with tears 
and all her face is illumined as with light, with 
the familiar, but long unseen, look of confidence. 


“Nicolai Stiepanovich!”’ she says implor- 
ingly, stretching out both her hands to me. 
“Dear, I beg you. ..I implore... If you 


do not despise my friendship and my respect 
for you, then do what I implore you.” 

“* What is it?” 

** Take my money.” 

‘What next? What’s the good of your 
money to me?” 

‘** You will go somewhere to be ¢ured. You 
must cure yourself. You will take it? Yes? 
Dear ..4.s. Yea}? 

She looks into my face eagerly and repeats : 

“Yes? You will take it?” 


94 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


** No, my dear, I won’t take it...”, I say. 
“« Thank you.” 

She turns her back to me and lowers her head. 
Probably the tone of my refusal would not 
allow any further talk of money. 

“Go home to sleep,” I say. ‘ Pll see you to- 
morrow.” 

“It means, you don’t consider me your 
friend ?’ she asks sadly. 

“TI don’t say that. But your money is no 
good to me.” 

“Forgive me,” she says lowering her voice 
by a full octave. “I understand you. To be 
obliged to a person like me . . . a retired actress 
. . . But good-bye.” 

And she walks away so quickly that I have no 
time even to say “ Good-bye.” 


VI 


I am in Kharkov. 

Since it would be useless to fight against my 
present mood, and I have no power to do it, I 
made up my mind that the last days of my life 
shall be irreproachable, on the formal side. If I 
am not right with my family, which I certainly 
admit, I will try at least to do as it wishes. 
Besides I am lately become so indifferent that 
it’s positively all the same to me whether I go 
te Kharkov, or Paris, or Berditshev. 


A TEDIOUS STORY 95 


I arrived here at noon and put up at a hotel 
not far from the cathedral. The train made me 
giddy, the draughts blew through me, and now 
I am sitting on the bed with my head in my hands 
waiting for the tic. I ought to go to my pro- 
fessor friends to-day, but I have neither the will 
nor the strength. 

The old hall-porter comes in to ask whether I 
have brought my own bed-clothes. I keep him 
about five minutes asking him questions about 
Gnekker, on whose account I came here. The 
porter happens to be Kharkov-born, and knows 
the town inside out; but he doesn’t remember 
any family with the name of Gnekker. I inquire 
about the estate. The answer is the same. 

The clock in the passage strikes one, . . . two, 
... three... The last months of my life, 
while I wait for death, seem to me far longer 
than my whole life. Never before could I 
reconcile myself to the slowness of time as I can 
now. Before, when I had to wait for a train 
at the station, or to sit at an examination, a 
quarter of an hour would seem an eternity. 
Now I can sit motionless in bed the whole night 
long, quite calmly thinking that there will be 
the same long, colourless night to-morrow, and 
the next day. ... 

In the passage the clock strikes five, six, 
seven ... . It grows dark. There is dull pain 
in my cheek—the beginning of the tic. To 
occupy myself with thoughts, I return to my 
old point of view, when I was not indifferent, 


96 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


and ask: Why do I, a famous man, a privy 
councillor, sit in this little room, on this bed with 
a strange grey blanket? Why do I look at this 
cheap tin washstand and listen to the wretched 
clock jarring in the passage? Is all this worthy 
of my fame and my high position among people ? 
And I answer these questions with a smile. 
My naiveté seems funny to me—the naiveté with 
which as a young man I exaggerated the value of 
fame and of the exclusive position which famous 
men enjoy. I am famous, my name is spoken 
with reverence. My portrait has appeared in 
‘“* Niva’”’ and in “ The Universal Illustration.” 
I’ve even read my biography in a German paper, 
but what of that? I sit lonely, by myself, in a 
strange city, on a strange bed, rubbing my 
aching cheek with my palm... . 

Family scandals, the hardness of creditors, the 
rudeness of railway men, the discomforts of the 
passport system, the expensive and unwholesome 
food at the buffets, the general coarseness and 
roughness of people,—all this and a great deal 
more that would take too long to put down, 
concerns me as much as it concerns any bourgeois 
who is known only in his own little street. 
Where is the exclusiveness of my position then ? 
We will admit that I am infinitely famous, that 
I am a hero of whom my country is proud. All 
the newspapers give bulletins of my illness, the 
post is already bringing in sympathetic addresses 
from my friends, my pupils, and the public. 
But all this will not save me from dying in 


A TEDIOUS STORY 97 


anguish on a stranger’s bed in utter loneliness. 
Of course there is no one to blame for this. 
But I must confess I do not like my popularity. 
I feel that it has deceived me. 
At about ten I fall asleep, and, in spite of the 
“tie sleep soundly, and would sleep for a long 
while were I not awakened. Just after one there 
is a sudden knock at my door. 

** Who’s there ? ” 

“A telegram.” 

‘*'You could have brought it to-morrow,” I 
storm, as I take the telegram from the porter. 
‘* Now I shan’t sleep again.” 

‘“‘I’m sorry. There was a light in your room. 
I thought you were not asleep.” 

I open the telegram and look first at the 
signature—my wife’s. What does she want ? 

“‘Gnekker married Liza secretly yesterday. 
Return.” 

I read the telegram. For a long while I am 
not startled. Not Gnekker’s or Liza’s action 

. frightens me, but the indifference with which 
I receive the news of their marriage. Men say 
that philosophers and true savants are indifferent. 
It is untrue. Indifference is the paralysis of the 
soul, premature death. 

I go to bed again and begin to ponder with 
what thoughts I can occupy myself. What on 
earth shall I think of ? I seem to have thought 
over everything, and now there is nothing 
powerful enough to rouse my thought. 

When the day begins to dawn, I sit in bed 


98 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


clasping my knees and, for want of occupation 
I try to know myself. ‘‘ Know yourself” is 
good, useful advice; but it is a pity that the 
ancients did not think of showing us the way to 
avail ourselves of it. 

Before, when I had the desire to understand 
somebody else, or myself, I used not to take into 
consideration actions, wherein everything is 
conditional, but desires. Tell me what you 
want, and I will tell you what you are. 

And now I examine myself. What doI want ? 

I want our wives, children, friends, and 
pupils to love in us, not the name or the firm or 
the label, but the ordinary human beings. What 
besides ? I should like to have assistants and 
successors. What more? I should like to 
wake in a hundred years’ time, and take a look, 
if only with one eye, at what has happened to 
science. I should like to live ten years more. 
. . . What further ? 

Nothing further. I think, think a long while 
and cannot make out anything else. However 
much I were to think, wherever my thoughts 
Should stray, it is clear to me that the chief, 
all-important something is lacking in my desires. 
In my infatuation for science, my desire to live, 
my sitting here on a strange bed, my yearning 
to know myself, in all the thoughts, feelings, 
and ideas I form about anything, there is want- 
ing the something universal which could bind 
all these together in one whole. Each feeling 
and thought lives detached in me, and in all 


A TEDIOUS STORY 99 


my opinions about science, the theatre, litera- 
ture, and my pupils, and in all the little pictures 
which my imagination paints, not even the most 
cunning analyst will discover what is called the 
general idea, or the god of the living man. 

And if this is not there, then nothing is there. 

In poverty such as this a serious infirmity, 
fear of death, influence of circumstances and 
people would have been enough to overthrow 
and shatter all that I formerly considered as my. 
conception of the world, and all wherein I saw 
the meaning and joy of my life. Therefore, it 
is nothing strange that I have darkened the last 
months of my life by thoughts and feelings 
worthy of a slave or a savage, and that I am now 
indifferent and do not notice the dawn. If there 
is lacking in a man that which is higher and 
stronger than all outside influences, then verily 
a good cold in the head is enough to upset his 
balance and to make him see each bird an owl 
and hear a dog’s whine in every sound; and all 
his pessimism or his optimism with their attend- 
ant thoughts, great and small, seem then to be 
merely symptoms and no more. 

I am beaten. Then it’s no good going on 
thinking, no good talking. [I shall sit and wait 
in silence for what will come. 

In the morning the porter brings me tea and 
the local paper. Mechanically I read the ad- 
vertisements on the first page, the leader, the 
extracts from newspapers and magazines, the 
local news .. . Among other things I find in 


100 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


the local news an item like this: ‘* Our famous 
scholar, emeritus professor Nicolai Stiepanovich 
arrived in Kharkov yesterday by the express, 
and stayed at hotel.” 

Evidently big names are created to live de- 
tached from those who bear them. Now my 
name walks in Kharkov undisturbed. In some 
three months it will shine as bright as the sun 
itself, inscribed in letters of gold on my tomb- 
stone—at a time when I myself will be under 
the sod . .. 

A faint knock at the door. Somebody wants 
me. 

*“'Who’s there? Come in!” 

The door opens. I step back in astonishment, 
and hasten to pull my dressing gown together. 
Before me stands Katy. 

‘“ How do you do?” she says, panting from 
running up the stairs. “ You didn’t expect 
me? I... I’ve come too.” 

She sits down and continues, stammering and 
looking away from me. ‘‘ Why don’t you say 
‘Good morning’? I arrived too... to-day. I 
found out you were at this hotel, and eame to 
see you.” 

“I’m delighted to see you,” I say shrugging 
my shoulders. ‘“ But I’msurprised. You might 
have dropped straight from heaven. What are 
you doing here ?”’ 

SL? « % -d just-canie” 

Silence. Suddenly she gets up impetuously 
and comes over to me. 





“A TEDIOUS STORY 101 


“ Nicolai Stiepanich ! ”’ she says, growing pale 
and pressing her hands to her breast. ‘“* Nicolai 
Stiepanich! I can’t go on like this any longer. 
I can’t. For God’s sake tell me now, immedi- 
ately. What shall I do? Tell me, what shall 
Ido?” 

“What canI say? Iam beaten. I can say 
nothing.” 

** But tell me, I implore you,”’ she continues, 
out of breath and trembling all over her body. 
**I swear to you, I can’t go on like this any 
longer. I haven’t the strength.” 

She drops into a chair and begins to sob. She 
throws her head back, wrings her hands, stamps 
with her feet; her hat falls from her head and 
dangles by its string, her hair is loosened. 

“Help me, help,” she implores. ‘‘I can’t 
bear it any more.” 

She takes a handkerchief out of her little 
travelling bag and with it pulls out some letters 
which fall from her knees to the floor. I pick 
them up from the floor and recognise on one of 
them Mikhail Fiodorovich’s hand-writing, and 
accidentally read part of a word: “‘ passionat. ...” 

“There’s nothing that I can say to you, 
Katy,” I say. 

“Help me,” she sobs, seizing my hand and 
kissing it. ‘‘ You’re my father, my only friend. 
You’re wise and learned, and you’ve lived long! 
You were a teacher. Tell me what to do.” 

I am bewildered and surprised, stirred by her 
sobbing, and I can hardly stand upright. 


b 


> 


102 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


*“* Let’s have some breakfast, Katy,” I até with 
a constrained smile. 

Instantly I add in a sinking voice: 

**I shall be dead soon, Katy. .. .” 

“Only one word, only one word,”’ she weeps 
and stretches out her hands to me. ‘ What 
shall I do?” 

** You're a queer thing, really ...”’, I murmur. 
“TI can’t understand it. Such a clever woman 
and suddenly—weeping. . . .” 

Comes silence. Katy arranges her hair, puts 
on her hat, then crumples her letters and stuffs 
them in her little bag, all in silence and unhurried. 
Her face, her bosom and her gloves are wet with 
tears, but her expression is dry already, stern . .. 
I look at her and am ashamed that I am happier 
than she. It was but a little while before my 
death, in the ebb of my life, that I noticed in 
myself the absence of what our friends the 
philosophers call the general idea ; but this poor 
thing’s soul has never known and never will 
know shelter all her life, all her life. 

‘* Katy, let’s have breakfast,” I say. 

‘“* No, thank you,” she answers coldly. 

One minute more passes in silence. 

““T don’t like Kharkov,” I say. “It’s too 
grey. A grey city.” 

“Yes... ugly. ... I’m not here for long. 

. On my way. I leave to-day.” 

** For where ? ” 

** For the Crimea . . . I mean, the Caucasus.” 

“So. For long?” 


A TEDIOUS STORY 103 


“I don’t know.” 

Katy gets up and gives me her hand with a 
cold smile, looking away from me. 

I would like to ask her: “‘ That means you 
won’t be at my funeral?” But she does not 
look at me; her hand is cold and like a stranger’s. 
I escort her to the door in silence. . . . She goes 
out of my room and walks down the long passage, 
without looking back. She knows that my eyes 
are following her, and probably on the landing 
she will look back. 

No, she did not look back. The black dress 
showed for the last time, her steps were stilled. 
. . . Goodbye, my treasure ! 





THE FIL 


Tue medical student Mayer, and Ribnikov, a 
student at the Moscow school of painting, 
sculpture, and architecture, came one evening 
to their friend Vassiliev, law student, and pro- 
posed that he should go with them to S Vv 
Street. For a long while Vassiliev did not agree, 
but eventually dressed himself and went with 
them. | 

Unfortunate women he knew only by hearsay 
and from books, and never once in his life had 
he been in the houses where they live. He 
knew there were immoral women who were 
forced by the pressure of disastrous circum- 
stances—environment, bad up-bringing, poverty, 
and the like—to sell their honour for money. 
They do not know pure love, have no children 
and no legal rights; mothers and sisters mourn 
them for dead, science treats them as an evil, 
men are familiar with them. But notwithstand- 
ing all this they do not lose the image and like- 
ness of God. They all acknowledge their sin 
and hope for salvation. They are free to avail 

H 





106 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


themselves of every means of salvation. True, 
Society does not forgive people their past, but 
with God Mary of Egypt is not lower than the 
other saints. Whenever Vassiliev recognised an 
unfortunate woman in the street by her costume 
or her manner, or saw a picture of one in a comic 
paper, there came into his mind every time a 
story he once read somewhere: a pure and 
heroic young man falls in love with an unfor- 
tunate woman and asks her to be his wife, but 
she, considering herself unworthy of such happi- 
ness, poisons herself. 

Vassiliev lived in one of the streets off the 
Tverskoi boulevard. When he and his friends 
came out of the house it was about eleven o’clock 
—the first snow had just fallen and all nature 
was under the spell of this new snow. The air 
smelt of snow, the snow cracked softly under 
foot, the earth, the roofs, the trees, the benches 
on the boulevards—all were soft, white, and 
young. Owing to this the houses had a different . 
look from yesterday, the lamps burned brighter, 
the air was more transparent, the clatter of the 
cabs was dulled and there entered into the soul 
with the fresh, easy, frosty air a feeling like the 
white, young, feathery snow. ‘‘ To these sad 
shores unknowing” the medico began to sing 
in a pleasant tenor, ‘‘An unknown power entices ”’ 
... ‘* Behold the mill”... the painter’s 
voice took him up, “ it is now fall’n to 
ruin.” 

** Behold the mill, it is now fall’n to ruin,” the 


THE FIT 107 


medico repeated, raising his eyebrows and sadly 
shaking his head. 

He was silent for a while, passed his hand over 
his forehead trying to recall the words, and began 
to sing in a loud voice and so well that the 
passers-by looked back. 


‘“* Here, long ago, came free, free love to 
mess, 


All three went into a restaurant and without 
taking off their coats they each had two 
thimblefuls of vodka at the bar. Before drink- 
ing the second, Vassiliev noticed a piece of cork 
in his vodka, lifted the glass to his eye, looked 
at it for a long while with a short-sighted frown. 
The medico misunderstood his expression and 
said— 

** Well, what are you staring at? No philo- 
sophy, please. Vodka’s made to be drunk, 
caviare to be eaten, women to sleep with, snow 
to walk on. Live like a man for one evening.” 

“Well, I’ve nothing to say,” said Vassiliev 
laughingly, “‘ I’m not refusing ? ”’ 

The vodka warmed his breast. He looked at 
his friends admiringly, admired and envied them. 
How balanced everything is in these healthy, 
strong, cheerful people. Everything in their 
minds and souls is smooth and rounded off. 
They sing, have a passion for the theatre, paint, 
talk continually, and drink, and they never have 
a headache the next day. They are romantic 
and dissolute, sentimental and insolent; they 

H 2 


108 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


ean work and go on the loose and laugh at no- 
thing and talk rubbish; they are hot-headed, 
honest, heroic and as human beings not a bit 
worse than Vassiliev, who watches his every step 
and word, who is careful, cautious, and able to 
give the smallest trifle the dignity of a problem, 
And he made up his mind if only for one evening 
to live like his friends, to let himself go, and be 
free from his own control. Must he drink 
vodka? He’ll drink, even if his head falls to 
pieces to-morrow. Must he be taken to women ? 
He'll go. He’ll laugh, play the fool, and give a 
joking answer to disapproving passers-by. 

He came out of the restaurant laughing. He 
liked his friends—one in a battered hat with 
a wide brim who aped esthetic disorder; the 
other in a sealskin cap, not very poor, with a 
pretence of learned Bohemia. He liked the 
snow, the paleness, the lamp-lights, the clear 
black prints which the passers’ feet left on the 
snow. He liked the air, and above all the trans- 
parent, tender, naive, virgin tone which can be 
seen in nature only twice in the year: when 
everything is covered in snow, on the bright 
days in spring, and on moonlight nights when 
the ice breaks on the river. 

** 'To these sad shores unknowing,” he began to 
sing sotio-voce, ‘‘ An unknown power entices.” 

And all the way for some reason or other he 
and his friends had this melody on their lips. 
All three hummed it mechanically out of time 
with each other. 


THE FIT 109 


Vassiliev imagined how in about ten minutes 
he and his friends would knock at a door, how 
they would stealthily walk through the narrow 
little passages and dark rooms to the women, 
how he would take advantage of the dark, 
suddenly strike a match, and see lit up a suffering 
face and a guilty smile. There he will surely 
find a fair or a dark woman in a white night- 
gown with her hair loose. She will be frightened 
of the light, dreadfully confused and say: 
“Good God! What are you doing? Blow it 
out!” All this was frightening, but curious and 
novel. 


‘Tl 


The friends turned out of Trubnoi Square into 
the Grachovka and soon arrived at the street 
which Vassiliev knew only from hearsay. Seeing 
two rows of houses with brightly lighted windows 
and wide open doors, and hearing the gay sound 
of pianos and fiddles—sounds which flew out 
of all the doors and mingled in a strange con- 
fusion, as if somewhere in the darkness over the 
roof-tops an unseen orchestra were tuning, 
Vassiliev was bewildered and said : 

“* What a lot of houses!” 

** What’s that?” said the medico. ‘‘ There 
are ten times as many in London. There are a 
hundred thousand of these women there.” 

The cabmen sat on their boxes quiet and in- 


110 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


different as in other streets; on the pavement 
walked the same passers-by. No one was in a 
hurry ; no one hid his face in his collar ; no one 
shook his head reproachfully. And in this 
indifference, in the confused sound of the pianos 
and fiddles, in the bright windows and wide-open 
doors, something very free, impudent, bold and 
daring could be felt. It must have been the 
same as this in the old times on the slave-markets, 
as gay and as noisy; people looked and walked 
with the same indifference. 

“* Let’s begin right at the beginning,”’ said the 
painter. 

The friends walked into a narrow little passage 
lighted by a single lamp with a reflector. When 
they opened the door a man in a black jacket 
rose lazily from the yellow sofa in the hall. 
He had an unshaven lackey’s face and sleepy 
eyes. The place smelt like a laundry, and of 
vinegar. From the hall a door led into a 
brightly lighted room. The medico and 
the painter stopped in the doorway, stretched 
out their necks and peeped into the room 
together : 

“Buona sera, signore, Rigoletto—huguenote 
—traviata !—”’ the painter began, making a 
theatrical bow. 

** Havanna—blackbeetlano—pistoletto!” said 
the medico, pressing his hat to his heart and 
bowing low. 

Vassiliev kept behind them. He wanted to 
bow theatrically too and say something silly. 


THE FIT 111 


But he only smiled, felt awkward and ashamed, 
and awaited impatiently what was to follow. 
In the door appeared a little fair girl of seventeen 
or eighteen, with short hair, wearing a short blue 
dress with a white bow on her breast. — 

** What are you standing in the door for?” 
she said. ‘“‘ Take off your overcoats and come 
into the salon.” 

The medico and the painter went into the 
salon, still speaking Italian. Vassiliev followed 
them irresolutely. 

** Gentlemen, take off your overcoats,” said 
the lackey stiffly. ‘* You’re not allowed in as 
you are.” 

Besides the fair girl there was another woman 
in the salon, very stout and tall, with a foreign 
face and bare arms. She sat by the piano, with 
a game of patience spread on her knees. She 
took no notice of the guests. 

‘*“'Where are the other girls?” asked the 
medico. 

‘““They’re drinking tea,” said the fair one. 
‘“* Stiepan,”’ she called out. ‘‘ Go and tell the 
girls some students have come!” 

A little later a third girl entered, in a bright 
red dress with blue stripes. Her face was thickly 
and unskilfully painted. Her forehead was 
hidden under her hair. She stared with dull, 
frightened eyes. As she came she immediately 
began to sing in a strong hoarse contralto. 
After her a fourth girl. After her a fifth. 

In all this Vassiliev saw nothing new or 


112 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


curious. It seemed to him that he had seen 
before, and more than once, this salon, piano, 
cheap gilt mirror, the white bow, the dress 
with blue stripes and the stupid, indifferent 
faces. But of darkness, quiet, mystery, and 
guilty smile—of all he had expected to meet here 
and which frightened him—he did not see even 
a shadow. 

Everything was commonplace, prosaic, and 
dull. Only one thing provoked his curiosity 
a little, that was the terrible, as it were intentional 
lack of taste, which was seen in the overmantels, 
the absurd pictures, the dresses and the white 
bow. In this lack of taste there was something 
characteristic and singular. 

‘* How poor and foolish it all is!’ thought 
Vassiliev. ‘‘ What is there in all this rubbish 
to tempt a normal man, to provoke him into 
committing a frightful sin, to buy a living soul 
for a rouble? I can understand anyone sin- 
ning for the sake of splendour, beauty, grace, 
passion; but what is there here? What 
tempts people here? But... it’s no good 
thinking ! ” 

‘* Whiskers, stand me champagne.”’ The fair 
one turned to him. 

Vassiliev suddenly blushed. - 

“With pleasure,” he said, bowing politely, 
‘But excuse me if I... 1 don’t drink with 
you. I don’t drink.” 

Five minutes after the friends were off to 
another house. 


¢ 


THE FIT 113 


“Why did you order drinks ?”’ stormed the 
medico. ‘“‘ What a millionaire, flinging six 
roubles into the gutter like that for nothing at 
all.” 

‘* Why shouldn’t I give her pleasure if she 
wants it ?”’ said Vassiliev, justifying himself. 

‘“* You didn’t give her any pleasure. Madame 
got that. It’s Madame who tells them to ask 
the guests for drinks. She makes by it.” 

‘* Behold the mill,” the painter began to sing, 
** Now fall’n to ruin. .. .” 

When they came to another house the friends 
stood outside in the vestibule, but did not enter 
the salon. As in the first house, a figure rose 
up from the sofa in the hall, in a black jacket, 
with a sleepy lackey’s face. As he looked. at 
this lackey, at his face and shabby jacket, 
Vassiliev thought: ‘‘ What must an ordinary 
simple Russian go through before Fate casts 
him up here? Where was he before, and what 
was he doing? What awaits him? Is he 
married, where’s his mother, and does she know 
he’s a lackey here?” Thenceforward in every 
house Vassiliev involuntarily turned his attention 
to the lackey first of all. 

In one of the houses, it seemed to be the fourth, 
the lackey was a dry little, puny fellow, with a 
chain across his waistcoat. He was reading a 
newspaper and took no notice of the guests at 
all. Glancing at his face, Vassiliey had the 
idea that a fellow with a face-like that could 
steal and murder and perjure. And indeed the 


114 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


face was interesting: a big forehead, grey eyes, 
a flat little nose, small close-set teeth, and the 
expression on his face dull and impudent at once, 
like a puppy hard on a hare. Vassiliev had the 
thought that he would like to touch this lackey’s 
hair: is it rough or soft? It must be rough 
like a dog’s. 


Ill 


Because he had had two glasses the painter 
suddenly got rather drunk, and unnaturally 
lively. 

‘* Let’s go to another place,” he added, waving 
his hands. “‘ I'll introduce you to the best!” 

When he had taken his friends into the house 
which was according to him the best, he pro- 
claimed a persistent desire to dance a quadrille. 
The medico began to grumble that they would 
have to pay the musicians a rouble but agreed 
to be his vis-a-vis. The dance began. 

It was just as bad in the best house as in the 
worst. Just the same mirrors and pictures were 
here, the same coiffures and dresses. Looking 
round at the furniture and the costumes Vassiliev 
now understood that it was not lack of taste, 
but something that might be called the particular 
taste and style of S——v Street, quite impossible 
to find anywhere else, something complete, not 
accidental, evolved in time. After he had been 


THE FIT 115 


to eight houses he no longer wondered at the 
colour of the dresses or the long trains, or at the 
bright bows, or the sailor dresses, or the thick 
violent painting of the cheeks; he understood 
that all this was in harmony, that if only one 
woman dressed herself humanly, or one decent 
print hung on the wall, then the general tone of 
the whole street would suffer. 

How badly they manage the business? Can’t 
they really understand that vice is only fascin- 
ating when it is beautiful and secret, hidden under 
the cloak of virtue ? Modest black dresses, pale 
faces, sad smiles, and darkness act more strongly 
than this clumsy tinsel. Idiots! If they don’t 
understand it ena their guests ought to 
teach them. ... 

A girl in a Polish ouaianiie trimmed with white 
fur came up close to him and sat down by his 
side. 

““Why don’t you dance, my brown-haired 
darling ?”’ she asked. ‘“‘ What do you feel so 
bored about ? ” 

“* Because it is boring.” 

*“* Stand me a Chateau Lafitte, then you won’t 
be bored.” 

Vassiliev made no answer. For a little while 
he was silent, then he asked : 

** What time do you go to bed as a rule?” 

oe Six.”’ 

“When do you get up?” 

** Sometimes two, sometimes three.” 

“* And after you get up what do you do?” 


116 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


“We drink coffee. We have dinner at 
— seven.” 

** And what do you have for dinner ?”’ 

“Soup or schi as a rule, beef-steak, dessert. 
Our madame keeps the girls well. But what are 
you asking all this for?” 

** Just to have a talk. . . .” 

Vassiliev wanted to ask about all sorts of 
things. He had a strong desire to find out where 
she came from, were her parents alive, and did 
they know she was here; how she got into the 
house ; was she happy and contented, or gloomy 
and depressed with dark thoughts. Does she 
ever hope to escape. ... But he could not 
possibly think how to begin, or how to put his 
questions without seeming indiscreet. He 
thought for a long while and asked : 

** How old are you?” 

‘* Eighty,” joked the girl, looking and laughing 
at the tricks the painter was doing with his hands 
and feet. 

She suddenly giggled and uttered a long filthy 
expression aloud so that every one could hear. 


Vassiliev, terrified, not knowing how to look, 
began to laugh uneasily. He alone smiled: all 
the others, his friends, the musicians and the 
women—paid no attention to his neighbour. 
They might never have heard. 

““ Stand me a Lafitte,”’ said the girl again. 

Vassiliev was suddenly repelled by her white 
trimming and her voice and left her. It seemed 


THE FIT 117 


te him close and hot. His heart began to beat 
slowly and violently, like a hammer, one, two, 
three. 
** Let’s get out of here,’ he said, pulling the 
painter’s sleeve. 

“Wait. Let’s finish it.” 

While the medico and the painter were 
finishing their quadrille, Vassiliev, in order to 
avoid the women, eyed the musicians. The 
pianist was a nice old man with spectacles, with 
a face like Marshal Basin ; the fiddler a young 
man with a short, fair beard dressed in the latest 
fashion. The young man was not stupid or 
starved, on the contrary he looked clever, 
young and fresh. He was dressed with a touch of 
originality, and played with emotion. Problem: 
how did he and the decent old man get here? 
Why aren’t they ashamed to sit here? What do 
they think about when they look at the women ? 

If the piano and the fiddle were played by 
ragged, hungry, gloomy, drunken creatures, 
with thin stupid faces, then their presence would 
perhaps be intelligible. As it was, Vassiliev 
could understand nothing. Into his memory 
came the story that he had read about the un- 
fortunate woman, and now he found that the 
human figure with the guilty smile had nothing 
to do with this. It seemed to him that they were 
not unfortunate women that he saw, but they 
belonged to another, utterly different world, 
foreign and inconceivable to him; if he had seen 
this world on the stage or read about it in a book 


118 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


he ‘would never have believed it. . . . The girl 
with the white trimming giggled again and said 
something disgusting aloud. He felt sick, 
blushed, and went out : 

“Wait. We’re coming too,” cried the painter. 


IV 


“T had a talk with my mam’selle while we 
were dancing,” said the medico when all three 
came into the street. “‘ The subject was her 
first love. He was a bookkeeper in Smolensk 
with a wife and five children. She was seven- 
teen and lived with her pa and ma who kept a 
soap and candle shop.” 

‘““How did he conquer her heart?” asked 
Vassiliev. 

“* He bought her fifty roubles’-worth of under- 
clothes—Lord knows what!” 

‘“* However could he get her love-story out of 
his girl?’ thought Vassiliev. “I can’t. My 
dear chaps, I’m off home,” he said. 

“ce Why Y 3 3? 

‘“* Because I don’t know how to get on here. 
I’m bored and disgusted. What is there amusing 
about it? If they were only human beings ; 
but they’re savages and beasts. I’m going, 
please.” 

“* Grisha darling, please,’ the painter said with 
a sob in his voice, pressing close to Vassiliev, 


THE FIT 119 


“let’s go to one more—then to Hell with 
them. Do come, Grigor.” 

They prevailed on Vassiliev and led him up a 
staircase. The carpet and the gilded balustrade, 
the porter who opened the door, the panels 
which decorated the hall, were still in the same 
S——-v Street style, but here it was perfected 
and imposing. 

“ Really I’m going home,” said Vassiliev, 
taking off his overeoat. 

‘““ Darling, please, please,” said the painter 
and kissed him on the neck. ‘“‘ Don’t be so 
faddy, Grigri—be a pal. Together we came, 
together we go. What a beast you are though!” 

** I can wait for you in the street. My God, 
it’s disgusting here.” 

““ Please, please . . . You just look on, see, 
just look on.” 

** One should look at things objectively,” said 
the medico seriously. 

Vassiliey entered the salon and sat dorms. 
There were many more guests besides him and 
his friends: two infantry officers, a grey, 
bald-headed gentleman with gold spectacles, 
two young clean-shaven men from the Sur- 
veyors’ Institute, and a very drunk man with an 
actor’s face. All the girls were looking after 
these guests and took no notice of Vassiliev. 
Only one of them dressed like Aida glanced at 
him sideways, smiled at something and said with 
a yawn: 

“So the dark one’s come.” 


120 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


Vassiliev’s heart was beating and his face was 
burning. He felt ashamed for being there, dis- 
gusted and tormented. He was tortured by the 
thought that he, a decent and affectionate man 
(so he considered himself up till now), despised 
these women and felt nothing towards them but 
repulsion. He could not feel pity for them or for 
the musicians or the lackeys. 

“It’s because I don’t try to understand them,” 
he thought. ‘“ They’re all more like beasts than 
human beings ; but all the same they are human 
beings. They’ve got souls. One should under- 
stand them first, then judge them.” 

‘“* Grisha, don’t go away. Wait for us,”’ called 
the painter; and he disappeared somewhere. 

Soon the medico disappeared also. 

‘** Yes, one should try to understand. It’s no 
good, otherwise,” thought Vassiliev, and he 
began to examine intently the face of each girl, 
looking for the guilty smile. But whether he 
could not read faces or because none of these 
women felt guilty he saw in each face only a 
dull look of common, vulgar boredom and 
satiety. Stupid eyes, stupid smiles, harsh, 
stupid voices, impudent gestures—and nothing 
else. Evidently every woman had in her past 
a love romance with a bookkeeper and fifty 
roubles’-worth of underclothes. And in the 
present the only good things in life were coffee, 
a three-course dinner, wine, quadrilles, and 
sleeping till two in the afternoon . . 

Finding not one guilty smile, Vassiliev began 


THE FIT 121 


to examine them to see if even one looked 
clever and his attention was arrested by 
one pale, rather tired face. It was that of a 
dark woman no longer young, wearing a dress 
scattered with spangles. She sat in a chair 
staring at the floor and thinking of something. 
Vassiliev paced up and down and then sat down 
beside her as if by accident. 

‘** One must begin with something trivial,’’ he 
thought, ‘‘ and gradually pass on to serious con- 
versation .. .” 

‘** What a beautiful little dress you have on,” 
he said, and touched the gold fringe of her scarf 
with his finger. 

** It’s all right,” said the dark woman. 

** Where do you come:from ? ” 

“1? Along way. From Tchernigov.” 

*< It’s a nice part.” 

““It always is, where you don’t happen to 
be.” 

“What a pity I can’t describe nature,”’ thought 
Vassiliev. ‘I’d move her by descriptions of 
Tchernigov. She must love it if she was born 
there.” 

‘** Do you feel lonely here ? ”’ he asked. 

‘** Of course I’m lonely.” 

** Why don’t you go away from here, if oe re 
lonely ? ” 

‘* Where shall I go to? Start begging, eh?” 

‘It’s easier to beg than to live here.” 

‘** Where did you get that idea? Have you 
been a beggar ?” 

I 


122 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


“I begged, when I hadn’t enough to pay my 
university fees; and even if I hadn’t begged it’s 
easy enough to understand. A beggar is a free 
man, at any rate, and you’re a slave.” 

The dark woman stretched herself, and fol- 
lowed with sleepy eyes the lackey who carried 
a tray of glasses and soda-water. 

** Stand us a champagne,” she said, and yawned 
again. 

‘“* Champagne,” said Vassiliev. ‘‘ What would 
happen if your mother or your brother suddenly 
came in? What would you say? And what 
would they say? You would say ‘cham- 
pagne’ then.” 

Suddenly the noise of crying was heard. From 
the next room where the lackey had carried the 
soda-water, a fair man rushed out with a red 
face and angry eyes. He was followed by the 
tall, stout madame, who screamed in a squeaky 
voice : 

“No one gave you permission to slap the 
girls in the face. Better class than you come 
here, and never slap a girl. You bounder!” 

Followed an uproar. Vassiliey was scared 
and went white. In the next room some one 
wept, sobbing, sincerely, as only the insulted 
weep. And he understood that indeed human 
beings lived here, actually human beings, who 
get offended, suffer, weep, and ask for help. 
The smouldering hatred, the feeling of repulsion, 
gave way to an acute sense of pity and anger 
against the wrong-doer. He rushed into the 


THE FIT 123 


room from which the weeping came. Through 
the rows of bottles which stood on the marble 
table-top he saw a suffering tear-stained face, 
stretched out his hands towards this face, stepped 
to the table and instantly gave a leap back in 
terror. The sobbing woman was dead-drunk. 

As he made his way through the noisy crowd, 
gathered round the fair man, his heart failed 
him, he lost his courage like a boy, and it seemed 
to him that in this foreign, inconceivable world, 
they wanted to run after him, to beat him, to 
abuse him with foul words. He tore down his 
coat from the peg and rushed headlong down the 
stairs. 


—: 


Pressing close to the fence, he stood near to 
the house and waited for his friends to come out. 
The sounds of the pianos and fiddles, gay, bold, 
impudent and sad, mingled into chaos in the 
air, and this confusion was, as before, as if an 
unseen orchestra were tuning in the dark over 
the roof-tops. If he looked up towards the 
darkness, then all the background was scattered 
with white, moving points: it was snowing. 
The flakes, coming into the light, spun lazily in 
the air like feathers, and still more lazily fell. 
Flakes of snow crowded whirling about Vassiliev, 
and hung on his beard, his eyelashes, his eye- 
brows. The cabmen, the horses, and the passers- 
by, all were white. 

12 


124 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


‘* How dare the snow fall in this street ?”’ 
thought Vassiliev. ‘‘ A curse on these houses.” 

Because of his headlong rush down the stair- 
case his feet failed him from weariness; he was 
out of breath as if he had climbed a mountain. 
His heart beat so loud that he could hear it. A 
longing came over him to get out of this street 
as soon as possible and go home; but still 
stronger was his desire to wait for his friends and 
to vent upon them his feeling of heaviness. 

He had not understood many things in the 
houses. The souls of the perishing women were 
to him a mystery as before; but it was clear to 
him that the business was much worse than 
one would have thought. If the guilty woman 
who poisoned herself was called a prostitute, 
then it was hard to find a suitable name for all 
these creatures, who danced to the muddling 
music and said long, disgusting phrases. They 
were not perishing ; they were already done for. 

“*'Vice is here,’’ he thought; ‘‘ but there is 
neither confession of sin nor hope of salvation. 
They are bought and sold, drowned in wine and 
torpor, and they are dull and indifferent as sheep 
and do not understand. My God, my God!” 

It was so clear to him that all that which is 
called human dignity, individuality, the image 
and likeness of God, was here dragged down to 
the gutter, as they say of drunkards, and that 
not only the street and the stupid women were 
to blame for it. 

A crowd of students white with snow, talking 


THE FIT 125 


and laughing gaily, passed by. One of them, a 
tall, thin man, peered into Vassiliev’s face and 
said drunkenly, “‘ He’s one of ours. Logged, 
old man? Aha! my lad. Never mind. Walk 
up, never say die, uncle.” 

He took Vassiliev by the shoulders and pressed 
his cold wet moustaches to his cheek, then slipped, 
staggered, brandished his arms, and cried out: 

“* Steady there—don’t fall.” 

Laughing, he ran to join his comrades. 

Through the noise the painter’s voice became 
audible. 

“You dare beat women! I won’t have it. 
Go to Hell. You’re regular swine.” 

The medico appeared at the door of the house. 
He glanced round and on seeing Vassiliev, said 
in alarm : 

“Is that you? My God, it’s simply impos- 
sible to go anywhere with Yegor. I can’t under- 
stand a chap like that. He kicked up a row— 
can’t you hear? Yegor,” he called from the 
door. ‘“‘ Yegor!” 

““T won’t have you hitting women.” The 
painter’s shrill voice was audible again from 
upstairs. a 

Something heavy and bulky tumbled down 
the staircase. It was the painter coming head 
~ over heels. He had evidently been thrown out. 

He lifted himself up from the ground, dusted 
his hat, and with an angry indignant face, 
shook his fist at the upstairs. 

““Seoundrels! Butchers! Bloodsuckers! I 


126 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


won’t have you hitting a weak, drunken woman. 
Ah, you. .. .” 

“Yegor ... Yegor!” the medico began to 
implore, “‘ I give my word I'll never go out with 
you again. Upon my honour, I won’t.” 

The painter gradually calmed, and the friends 
went home. 

““To these sad shores unknowing ’’—the medico 
began—‘ An unknown power entices. . . .” 

** Behold the mill,”’ the painter sang with him 
after a pause, “‘ Now fallen into ruin.” How 
the snow is falling, most Holy Mother. Why did 
you go away, Grisha? You’re a _ coward; 
you’re only an old woman.” 

Vassiliey was walking behind his friends. 
He stared at their backs and thought: “ One of 
two things: either prostitution only seems to us 
an evil and we exaggerate it, or if prostitution is 
really such an evil as is commonly thought, these 
charming friends of mine are just as much © 
slavers, violators, and murderers as the in- 
habitants of Syria and Cairo whose photographs 
appear in ‘ The Field.’ They’re singing, laugh- 
ing, arguing soundly now, but haven’t they just 
been exploiting starvation, ignorance, and 
stupidity? . They have, I saw them at it. Where 
does their humanity, their science, and their 
painting come in, then? The science, art, and 
lofty sentiments of these murderers remind 
me of the lump of fat in the story. Two 
robbers killed a beggar in a forest; they began 
to divide his clothes between themselves and 


THE FIT 127 


found in his bag a lump of pork fat. ‘In the 
nick of time,’ said one of them. ‘ Let’s have a 
bite!’ ‘How can you?’ the other cried in 
terror. ‘ Have you forgotten to-day’s Friday?’ 
So they refrained from eating. After having cut 
the man’s throat they walked out of the forest 
confident that they were pious fellows. These 
’ two are just the same. When they’ve paid for 
women they go and imagine they’re painters and 
scholars. .. . 

‘** Listen, you two,” he said angrily and 
sharply. ‘“‘ Why do you go to those places ? 
Can’t you understand how horrible they are? 
Your medicine tells you every one of these 
women dies prematurely from consumption or 
something else ; your arts tell you that she died 
morally still earlier. Each of them dies because 
during her lifetime she accepts on an average, 
let us say, five hundred men. Each of them is 
killed by five hundred men, and you’re amongst 
the five hundred. Now if each of you comes here 
and to places like this two hundred and fifty 
times in his lifetime, then it means that between 
you you have killed one woman. Can’t you 
understand that? Isn’t it horrible?” 

** Ah, isn’t this awful, my God ? ” 

‘* There, I knew it would end like this,” said 
the painter frowning. ‘“‘ We oughtn’t to have 
had anything to do with this fool of a blockhead. 
I suppose you think your head’s full of great 
thoughts and great ideas now. Devil knows 
what they are, but they’re not ideas. You're 


128 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


staring at me now with hatred and disgust; 
but if you want my opinion you'd better build 
twenty more of the houses than look like that. 
There’s more vice in your look than in the whole 
street. Let’s clear out, Volodya, damn him! 
He’s a fool. He’s a blockhead, and that’s all 
he is.” 

** Human beings are always killing each other,” 
said the medico. ‘“ That is immoral, of course. 
But philosophy won’t help you. Good-bye!” 

The friends parted at Trubnoi Square and 
went their way. Left alone, Vassiliev began to 
stride along the boulevard. He was frightened 
of the dark, frightened of the snow, which fell 
to the earth in little flakes, but seemed to long 
to cover the whole world; he was frightened of 
the street-lamps, which glimmered faintly 
through the clouds of snow. An inexplicable 
faint-hearted fear possessed his soul. Now and 
then people passed him; but he gave a start 
and stepped aside. It seemed to him that from 
everywhere there came and stared at him 
women, only women... . 

“It’s coming on,”’ he thought, “ I’m going to 
have a fit.” 


VI 


At home he lay on his bed and began to talk, 
shivering all over his body. 

“Live women, live. ... My God, they’re 
alive.” 


THE FIT 129 


He sharpened the edge of his imagination in 
every possible way. Now he was the brother 
of an unfortunate, now her father. Now he was 
himself a fallen woman, with painted cheeks ; 
and all this terrified him. 

It seemed to him somehow that he must solve 
this question immediately, at all costs, and that 
the problem was not strange to him, but was his 
own. He made a great effort, conquered his 
despair, and, sitting on the side of the bed, his 
head clutched in his hands, he began to think : 

How could all the women he had seen that 
night be saved? The process of solving a 
problem was familiar to him as to a learned 
person ; and notwithstanding all his excitement 
he kept strictly to this process. He recalled 
to mind the history of the question, its litera- 
ture, and just after three o’clock he was pacing 
up and down, trying to remember all the 
experiments which are practised nowadays for 
the salvation of women. He had a great many 
good friends who lived in furnished rooms, 
Falzfein, Galyashkin, Nechaiev, Yechkin... 
not a few among them were honest and self- 
sacrificing, and some of them had attempted to 
save these women... . 

All these few attempts, thought Vassiliev, 
rare attempts, may be divided into three groups. 
Some having rescued a woman from a brothel 
hired a room for her, bought her a sewing- 
machine and she became a dressmaker, and the 
man who saved her kept her for his mistress, 


130 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


openly or otherwise, but later when he had 
finished his studies and was going away, he would 
hand her over to another decent fellow. So the 
fallen woman remained fallen. Others after 
having bought her out also hired a room for her, 
bought the inevitable sewing-machine and started 
her off reading and writing and preached at her. 
The woman sits and sews as long as it is nove] 
and amusing, but later, when she is bored, she 
begins to receive men secretly, or runs back to 
where she can sleep till three in the afternoon, 
drink coffee, and eat till she is full. Finally, the 
most ardent and self-sacrificing take a bold, 
determined step. They marry, and when the 
impudent, self-indulgent, stupefied creature 
becomes a wife, a lady of the house, and then a 
mother, her life and outlook are utterly changed, 
and in the wife and mother it is hard to recognise 
the unfortunate woman. Yes, marriage is the 
best, it may be the only, resource. 

“But it’s impossible,’ Vassiliev said aloud 
and threw himself down on his bed. “ First of 
all, I could not marry one. One would have to 
be a saint to be able to do it, unable to hate, 
not knowing disgust. But let us suppose that 
the painter, the medico, and I got the better of 
our feelings and married, that all these women 
got married, what is the result? What kind of 
effect follows? The result is that while the 
women get married here in Moscow, the Smolensk 
bookkeeper seduces a fresh lot, and these will 
pour into the empty places, together with 


THE FIT 131 


women from Saratov, Nijni-Novgorod, Warsaw. 
. . . And what happens to the hundred thousand 
in London? What can be done with those in 
Hamburg ? 

The oil in the lamp was used up and the lamp 
began to smell. Vassiliev did not notice it. 
Again he began to pace up and down, thinking. 
Now he put the question differently. What can 
be done to remove the demand for fallen women ? 
For this it is necessary that the men who buy 
and kill them should at once begin to feel all the 
immorality of their réle of slaveowners, and 
this should terrify them. It is necessary to 
save the men. 

Science and art apparently won’t do, thought 
Vassiliev. There is only one way out—to be an 
apostle. 

And he began to dream how he would stand 
to-morrow evening at the corner of the street 
and say to each passer-by: “‘ Where are you 
going and what for? Fear God!” 

He would turn to the indifferent cabmen and 
say to them: 

‘* Why are you standing here? Why don’t 
you revolt ? You do believe in God, don’t you ? 
And you do know that this is a crime, and that 
people will go to Hell for this? Why do you 
keep quiet, then? True, the women are 
strangers to you, but they have fathers and 
brothers exactly the same as you... .” 

Some friend of Vassiliev’s once said of him 
that he was a man of talent. There is a talent 


182 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


for writing, for the theatre, for painting; but 
Vassiliev’s was peculiar, a talent for humanity. 
He had a fine and noble flair for every kind of 
suffering. Asa good actor reflects in himself 
the movement and voice of another, so Vassiliev 
could reflect in himself another’s pain. Seeing 
tears, he wept. With a sick person, he himself 
became sick and moaned. If he saw violence 
done, it seemed to him that he was the victim. 
He was frightened like a child, and, frightened, 
ran for help. Another’s pain roused him, excited 
him, threw him into a state of ecstasy. .. . 

Whether the friend was right I do not know, 
but what happened to Vassiliev when it seemed 
to him that the question was solved was very 
much like an ecstasy. He sobbed, laughed, 
said aloud the things he would say to-morrow, 
felt a burning love for the men who would listen 
to him and stand by his side at the corner of the 
street, preaching. He sat down to write to 
them; he made vows. 

All this was the more like an ecstasy in that 
it did not last. Vassiliey was soon tired. The 
London women, the Hamburg women, those 
from Warsaw, crushed him with their mass, as 
the mountains crush the earth. He quailed 
before this mass; he lost himself; he remem- 
bered he had no gift for speaking, that he was 
timid and faint-hearted, that strange people 
would hardly want to listen to and understand 
him, a law-student in his third year, a frightened 
and insignificant figure. The true apostleship 


THE FIT 133 


consisted, not only in preaching, but also in 
deeds. ... 

When daylight came and the carts rattled on 
the streets, Vassiliev lay motionless on the sofa, 
staring at one point. He did not think any 
more of women, or men, or apostles. All his 
attention was fixed on the pain of his soul which 
tormented him. It was a dull pain, indefinite, 
vague; it was like anguish and the most acute 
fear and despair. He could say where the 
pain was. It was in his breast, under the heart. 
It could not be compared to anything. Once 
on a time he used to have violent toothache. 
Once, he had pleurisy and neuralgia. But all 
these pains were as nothing beside the pain of 
his soul. Beneath this pain life seemed repulsive. 
The thesis, his brilliant work already written, 
the people he loved, the salvation of fallen 
women, all that which only yesterday he loved 
or was indifferent to, remembered now, irritated 
him in the same way as the noise of the carts, 
the running about of the porters and the daylight 
. . . If someone now were to perform before 
his eyes a deed of mercy or an act of revolt- 
ing violence, both would produce upon him 
an equally repulsive impression. Of all the 
thoughts which roved lazily in his head, two 
only did not irritate him: one—at any moment 
he had the power to kill himself, the other— 
that the pain would not last more than three 
days. The second he knew from experience. 

After having lain down for a while he got up 


134 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


and walked wringing his hands, not from corner 
to corner as usually, but in a square along the 
walls. He caught a glimpse of himself in the 
glass. His face,was pale and haggard, his temples 
hollow, his eyes bigger, darker, more immobile, 
as if they were not his own, and they expressed 
the intolerable suffering of his soul. 

In the afternoon the painter knocked at the 
door. 

** Gregory, are you at home ? ” he asked. 

Receiving no answer, he stood musing for a 
while, and said to himself good-naturedly : 

“Out. He’s gone to the University. Damn 


And went away. 

Vassiliev lay down on his bed and burying 
his head in the pillow he began to cry with the 
pain. But the faster his tears flowed, the more 
terrible was the pain. When it was dark, he got 
into his mind the idea of the horrible night which 
was awaiting him and awful despair seized him. 
He dressed quickly, ran out of his room, leaving 
the door wide open, and into the street without 
reason or purpose. Without asking himself 
where he was going, he walked quickly to 
Sadovaia Street. 

Snow was falling as yesterday. It was thaw- 
ing. Putting his hands into his sleeves, shiver- 
ing, and frightened of the noises and the bells 
of the trams and of passers-by, Vassiliev walked 
from Sadovaia to Sukhariev Tower then to the 
Red Gates, and from here he turned and went to 


THE FIT 135 


Basmannaia. He went into a public-house and 
gulped down a big glass of vodka, but felt no 
better. Arriving at Razgoulyai, he turned to 
the right and began to stride down streets that 
he had never in his life been down before. He 
came to that old bridge under which the river 
Yaouza roars and from whence long rows of 
lights are seen in the windows of the Red 
Barracks. In order to distract the pain of his 
soul by a new sensation or another pain, not 
knowing what to do, weeping and trembling, 
Vassiliev unbuttoned his coat and jacket, baring 
his naked breast to the damp snow and the wind. 
Neither lessened the pain. Then he bent over 
the rail of the bridge and stared down at the 
black, turbulent Yaouza, and he suddenly 
wanted to throw himself head-first, not from 
hatred of life, not for the sake of suicide, but 
only to hurt himself and so to kill one pain by 
another. But the black water, the dark, de- 
serted banks covered with snow were frighten- 
ing. He shuddered and went on. He walked 
as far as the Red Barracks, then back and into 
a wood, from the wood to the bridge again. 

“No! Home, home,” he thought. ‘“ At 
home I believe it’s easier.” 

And he went back. On returning home he 
tore off his wet clothes and hat, began to pace 
along the walls, and paced incessantly until 
the very morning. 


136 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


Vil 


The next morning when the painter and the 
medico came to see him, they found him in a 
shirt torn to ribbons, his hands bitten all over, 
tossing about in the room and moaning with 
pain. 

‘** For God’s sake!” he began to sob, seeing 
his comrades, “‘ Take me anywhere you like, 
do what you like, but save me, for God’s sake 
now, now! I'll kill myself.” 

The painter went pale and was bewildered. 
The medico, too, nearly began to cry; but, 
believing that medical men must be cool and 
serious on every occasion of life, he said coldly : 

“It’s a fit you’ve got. But never mind. 
Come to the doctor, at once.”’ 

‘“* Anywhere you like, but quickly, for God’s 
sake !”’ 

“Don’t be agitated. You must struggle with 
yourself.” 

The painter and the medico dressed Vassiliev 
with trembling hands and led him into the 
street. 

‘“* Mikhail Sergueyich has been wanting to 
make your acquaintance for a long while,” the 
medico said on the way. ‘“‘ He’s a very nice 
man, and knows his job splendidly. He took his 
degree in 82, and has got a huge practice 
already. He keeps friends with the students.” 

** Quicker, quicker . . .” urged Vassiliev. 


THE FIT 137 


Mikhail Sergueyich, a stout doctor with fair 
hair, received the friends politely, firmly, coldly, 
and smiled with one cheek only. 

“* The painter and Mayer have told me of your 
disease already,” he said. ‘* Very glad to be of 
service to you. Well? Sit down, please.” 

He made Vassiliev sit down in a big chair by 
the table, and put a box of cigarettes in front of 
him. 

“Well?” he began, stroking his knees. 
** Let’s make a start. How old are you?” 

He put questions and the medico answered. 
He asked whether Vassiliev’s father suffered 
from any peculiar diseases, if he had fits of 
drinking, was he distinguished by his severity 
or any other eccentricities. He asked the same 
questions about his grandfather, mother, sisters, 
and brothers. Having ascertained that his 
mother had a fine voice and occasionally appeared 
on the stage, he suddenly brightened up and 
asked : 

‘“‘ Excuse me, but could you recall whether the 
theatre was not a passion with your mother ? ”’ 

About twenty minutes passed. Vassiliev was 
bored by the doctor stroking his knees and talking 
of the same thing all the while. 

‘“‘ As far as I can understand your questions, 


Doctor,”’ he said. ‘‘ You want to know whether 
my disease is hereditary or not. It is not 
hereditary.” 


The doctor went on to ask if Vassiliev had not 
any secret vices in his early youth, any blows on 
K 


138 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


the head, any love passions, eccentricities, or 
exceptional infatuations. To half the questions 
habitually asked by careful doctors you may 
return no answer without any injury to your 
health; but Mikhail Sergueyich, the medico 
and the painter looked as though, if Vassiliev 
failed to answer even one single question, every- 
thing would be ruined. For some reason the 
doctor wrote down the answers he received on a 
scrap of paper. Discovering that Vassiliev had 
already passed through the faculty of natural 
science and was now in the Law faculty, the 
doctor began to be pensive. .. . 

** He wrote a brilliant thesis last year... 
said the medico. 

“Excuse me. You mustn’t interrupt me; 
you prevent me from concentrating,” the doctor 
said, smiling with one cheek. ‘“‘ Yes, certainly 
that is important for the anamnesis. ... Yes, 
yes.... And do you drink vodka?” he 
turned to Vassiliev. 

** Very rarely.” 

Another twenty minutes passed. The medico 
began sotto voce to give his opinion of the 
immediate causes of the fit and told how he, the 
painter and Vassiliev went to S——v Street the 
day before yesterday. 

The indifferent, reserved, cold tone in which his 
friends and the doctor were speaking of the 
women and the miserable street seemed to him 
in the highest degree strange. .. . 

“Doctor, tell me this one thing,” he said, 


2? 


THE FIT 139 


restraining himself from being rude. ‘“‘ Is prosti- 
tution an evil or not?” 

“My dear fellow, who disputes it?” the 
doctor said with an expression as though he had 
long ago solved all these questions for himself. 
** Who disputes it ? ” 

** Are you a psychiatrist ? ” 

“* Yes-s, a psychiatrist.” 

‘“* Perhaps all of you are right,” said Vassiliev, 
rising and beginning to walk from corner to 
corner. “It may be. But to me all this seems 
amazing. They see a great achievement in my 
having passed through two faculties at the 
university ; they praise me to the skies because 
I have written a work that will be thrown away 
and forgotten in three years’ time, but because I 
can’t speak of prostitutes as indifferently as I 
can about these chairs, they send me to doctors, 
call me a lunatic, and pity me.” 

For some reason Vassiliev suddenly began to 
feel an intolerable pity for himself, his friends, 
and everybody whom he had seen the day before 
yesterday, and for the doctor. He began to sob 
and fell into the chair. 

The friends looked interrogatively at the 
doctor. He, looking as though he magni- 
ficently understood the tears and the despair, 
and knew himself a specialist in this line, 
approached Vassiliev and gave him some drops 
to drink, and then when Vassiliev grew calm 
undressed him and began to examine the sensi- 
tiveness of his skin, of the knee reflexes,.... 

K 2 


140 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


And Vassiliev felt better. When he was 
coming out of the doctor’s he was already 
ashamed; the noise of the traffic did not seem 
irritating, and the heaviness beneath his heart 
became easier and easier as though it were 
thawing. In his hand were two prescriptions. 
One was for kali-bromatum, the other—morphia. 
He used to take both before. 

He stood still in the street for a while, pensive, 
and then, taking leave of his friends, lazily 
dragged on towards the university. 


MISFORTUNE 


Soputa Pretrovna, the wife of the solicitor 
Loubianzev, a handsome young woman of about 
twenty-five, was walking quickly along a forest 
path with her bungalow neighbour, the barrister 
Ilyin. It was just after four. In the distance, 
above the path, white feathery clouds gathered ; 
from behind them some bright blue pieces of 
cloud showed through. The clouds were motion- 
less, as if caught on the tops of the tall, aged fir 
trees. It was calm and warm. 

In the distance the path was cut across by 
a low railway embankment, along which at 
this hour, for some reason or other, a sentry 
strode. Just behind the embankment a big, 
six-towered church with a rusty roof shone 
white. 

““T did not expect to meet you here,” Sophia 
Pietrovna was saying, looking down and touch- 
ing the last year’s leaves with the end of her 
parasol. ‘“‘ But now I am glad to have met you. 


I want to speak to you seriously and finally. 
141 


142 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


Ivan Mikhailovich, if you really love and respect 
me I implore you to stop pursuing me! You 
follow me like a shadow—there’s such a wicked 
look in your eye—you make love to me—write 
extraordinary letters and...I don’t know 
how all this is going to end—Good Heavens! 
What can all this lead to? ” 

Ilyin was silent. Sophia Pietrovna took a 
few steps and continued : 

‘“* And this sudden complete change has hap- 
pened in two or three weeks after five years of 
friendship. I do not know you any more, Ivan 
Mikhailovich.” 

Sophia Pietrovna glanced sideways at her 
companion. He was staring intently, screwing 
up his eyes at the feathery clouds. The ex- 
pression of his face was angry, capricious 
and distracted, like that of a man who suffers 
and at the same time must listen to non- 
sense. 

** It is annoying that you yourself can’t realise 
it!’ Madame Loubianzev continued, shrugging 
her shoulders. ‘“‘ Please understand that you’re 
not playing a very nice game. I am married, 
I love and respect my husband. I have a 
daughter. Don’t you really care in the slightest 
for allthis? Besides, as an old friend, you know 
my views on family life . . . on the sanctity of 
the home, generally.” 

Ilyin gave an angry grunt and sighed : 

“The sanctity of the home,” he murmured, 
** Good Lord!” 


MISFORTUNE 148 


“Yes, yes. I love and respect my husband 
and at any rate the peace of my family life is 
precious to me. Id sooner let myself be killed 
than be the cause of Andrey’s or his daughter’s 
unhappiness. So, please, Ivan Mikhailovich, for 
goodness’ sake, leave me alone. Let us be good 
and dear friends, and give up these sighings and 
gaspings which don’t suit you. It’s settled and 
done with! Not another word about it. Let 
us talk of something else! ” 

Sophia Pietrovna again glanced sideways at 
Ilyin. He was looking up. He was pale, and 
angrily he bit his trembling lips. Madame 
Loubianzev could not understand why he was 
disturbed and angry, but his pallor moved 
her. 

** Don’t be cross. Let’s be friends,”’ she said, 
sweetly. 

‘** Agreed! Here is my hand.” 

Ilyin took her tiny plump hand in both 
his, pressed it and slowly raised it to his 
lips. 

‘“*1’m not a schoolboy,” he murmured. ‘I’m 
not in the least attracted by the idea of friend- 
ship with the woman I love.” 

‘“‘That’s enough. Stop! It is all settled and 
done with. We have come as far as the bench. 
Let us sit down...” 

A sweet sense of repose filled Sophia Pietro- 
vna’s soul. The most difficult and delicate 
thing was already said. The tormenting ques- 
tion was settled and done with. Now she could 


144 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


breathe easily and look straight at Ilyin. She 
looked at him, and the egotistical sense of 
superiority that a woman feels over her lover 
caressed her pleasantly. She liked the way this 
big strong man with a virile angry face and a 
huge black beard sat obediently at her side 
and hung his head. They were silent for a 
little while. ‘‘ Nothing is yet settled and done 
with,” Ilyin began. ‘‘ You are reading me a 
sermon. ‘I love and respect my husband... 
the sanctity of the home. . . .’ I know all that 
for myself and I can tell you more. Honestly 
and sincerely I confess that I consider my conduct 
as criminal and immoral. What else? But 
why say what is known already? Instead of 
sermonizing you had far better tell me what I 
am to do.” 

‘“‘T have already told you. Go away.” 

“I have gone. You know quite well. I 
have started five times and half-way there 
I have come back again. I can show you the 
through tickets. I have kept them all safe. 
But I haven’t the power to run away from you. I 
struggle frightfully, but what in Heaven’s name 
is the use? If I cannot harden myself, if I’m 
weak and faint-hearted. I can’t fight nature. 
Do you understand? I cannot! I run away 
from her and she holds me back by my coat- 
tails. Vile, vulgar weakness.”’ 

Ilyin blushed, got up, and began walking by 
the bench : 

““ How I hate and despise myself. Good Lord, 


MISFORTUNE 145 


I’m like a vicious boy—running after another 
man’s wife, writing idiotic letters, degrading 
myself. Ach!” He clutched his head, grunted 
and sat down. 

** And now comes your lack of sincerity into 
the bargain,”’ he continued with bitterness. “ If 
you don’t think I am playing a nice game— 
why are you here? What drew you? In my 
letters I only ask you for a straightforward 
answer: Yes, or No; and instead of giving it 
me, every day you contrive that we shall meet 
‘by chance’ and you treat me to quotations 
from a moral copy-book.” 

Madame Loubianzev reddened and got fright- 
ened. She suddenly felt the kind of awkwardness 
that a modest woman would feel at being sud- 
denly discovered naked. 

“* You seem to suspect some deceit on my side,” 
she murmured. ‘I have always given you a 
straight answer; and I asked you for one to- 
day.” 

‘“* Ah, does one ask such things? If you had 
said to me at once ‘Go away,’ I would have 
gone long ago, but you never told me to. 
Never once have you been frank. Strange 
irresolution. My God, either you’re playing 
with me, or... .” 

Ilyin did not finish, and rested his head in 
his hands. Sophia Pietrovna recalled her be- 
haviour all through. She remembered that she 
had felt all these days not only in deed but even 
in her most intimate thoughts opposed to Ilyin’s 


146 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


love. But at the same moment she knew that 
there was a grain of truth in the barrister’s 
words. And not knowing what kind of truth 
it was she could not think, no matter how 
much she thought about it, what to say to 
him in answer to his complaint. It was 
awkward being silent, so she said shrugging 
her shoulders : 

** So I’m to blame for that too ? ” 

‘*T don’t blame you for your insincerity,” 
sighed Ilyin. ‘“‘It slipped out unconsciously. 
Your insincerity is natural to you, in the natural 
order of things as well. If all mankind were to 
agree suddenly to become serious, everything 
would go to the Devil, to ruin.” 

Sophia Pietrovna was not in the mood for 
philosophy ; but she was glad of the opportunity 
to change the conversation and asked : 

‘“* Why indeed ? ” 

** Because only savages and animals are sincere. 
Since civilisation introduced into society the 
demand, for instance, for such a luxury as 
woman’s virtue, sincerity has been out of 
place.” 

Angrily Ilyin began to thrust his stick into 
the sand. Madame Loubianzev listened without 
understanding much of it; she liked the con- 
versation. First of all, she was pleased that a 
gifted man should speak to her, an average 
woman, about intellectual things; also it gave 
her great pleasure to watch how the pale, lively, 
still angry, young face was working. Much she 


MISFORTUNE 147 


did not understand; but the fine courage of 
modern man was revealed to her, the courage 
by which he without reflection or surmise solves 
the great questions and constructs his simple 
conclusions. 

Suddenly she discovered that she was admir- 
ing him, and it frightened her. 

** Pardon, but I don’t really understand,”’ she 
hastened to say. ‘“‘ Why did you mention in- 
sincerity ? I entreat you once more, be a dear, 
good friend and leave me alone. Sincerely, I 
ask it.” 

“* Good—T'll do my best. But hardly any- 
thing will come of it. Either I'll put a bullet 
through my brains or .-. . Pll start drinking in 
the stupidest possible way. Things will end 
badly for me. Everything has its limit, even 
a struggle with nature. Tell me now, how can 
one struggle with madness? If you’ve drunk 
wine, how can you get over the excitement ? 
What can I do if your image has grown into my 
soul, and stands incessantly before my eyes, 
night and day, as plain as that fir tree there ? 
Tell me then what thing I must do to get out of 
this wretched, unhappy state, when all my 
thoughts, desires, and dreams belong, not to me, 
but to some devil that has got hold of me? I 
love you, I love you so much that I’ve turned 
away from my path, given up my career and my 
closest friends, forgot my God. Never in my 
life have I loved so much.” 

Sophia Pietrovna, who was not expecting this 


148 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


turn, drew her body away from Ilyin, and glanced 
at him frightened. Tears shone in his eyes. His 
lips trembled, and a hungry, suppliant expres- 
sion showed over all his face. 

**T love you,” he murmured, bringing his own 
eyes near to her big, frightened ones. “ You are 
so beautiful. I’m suffering now; but I swear I 
could remain so all my life, suffering and looking 
into your eyes, but . . . Keep silent, I implore 
you.” 

Sophia Pietrovna as if taken unawares began, 
quickly, quickly, to think out words with which 
to stop him. “TI shall go away,” she decided, 
but no sooner had she moved to get up, than 
Tlyin was on his knees at her feet already. He 
embraced her knees, looked into her eyes and 
spoke passionately, ardently, beautifully. She 
did not hear his words, for her fear and agitation. 
Somehow now at this dangerous moment when 
her knees pleasantly contracted, as in a warm 
bath, she sought with evil intention to read some 
meaning into her sensation. She was angry 
because the whole of her instead of protesting 
virtue was filled with weakness, laziness, and 
emptiness, like a drunken man to whom the 
ocean is but knee-deep; only in the depths of 
her soul, a little remote malignant voice teased : 
“Why don’t you go away? Then this is right, 
it?” 

Seeking in herself an explanation she could not 
understand why she had not withdrawn the 
hand to which Ilyin’s lips clung like a leech, nor 


MISFORTUNE 149 


why, at the same time as Ilyin, she looked hur- 
riedly right and left to see that they were not 
observed. 

The fir-trees and the clouds stood motionless, 
and gazed at them severely like broken-down 
masters who see something going on, but have 
been bribed not to report to the head. ed 
sentry on the embankment stood like a stic 
and seemed to be staring at the bench. “ Let 
him look!” thought Sophia Pietrovna. 

* But ... But listen,” she said at last with 
despair in her voice. ‘‘ What will this lead to? 
What will happen afterwards ? ” 

“IT don’t know. I don’t know,” he began to 
whisper, waving these unpleasant questions aside. 

The hoarse, jarring whistle of a railway engine 
became audible. This cold, prosaic sound of the 
everyday world made Madame Loubianzev 
start. 

“It’s time, I must go,” she said, getting up 
quickly. ‘The train is coming. Andrey is 
arriving. He will want his dinner.” 

Sophia Pietrovna turned her blazing cheeks to 
the embankment. First the engine came slowly 
into sight, after it the carriages. It was not a 
bungalow train, but a goods train. In a long 
row, one after another like the days of man’s 
life, the cars drew past the white background of 
the church, and there seemed to be no end to 
them. 

But at last the train disappeared, and the end 
car with the guard and the lighted lamps dis-: 


150 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


appeared into the green. Sophia Pietrovna 
turned sharply and not looking at [lyin began to 
walk quickly back along the path. She had 
herself in control again. Red with shame, 
offended, not by Ilyin, no! but by the cowardice 
and shamelessness with which she, a good, 
respectable woman allowed a stranger to embrace 
her knees. She had only one thought now, to 
reach her bungalow and her family as quickly 
as possible. The barrister could hardly keep 
up with her. Turning from the path on to a 
little track, she glanced at him so quickly 
that she noticed only the sand on his knees, 
and she motioned with her hand at him to let 
her be. : 

Running into the house Sophia Pietrovna stood 
for about five minutes motionless in her room, 
looking now at the window then at the writing 
table... . “‘ You. disgraceful woman,” she 
scolded herself; ‘disgraceful!’ In spite of 
herself she recollected every detail, hiding 
nothing, how all these days she had been against 
Tlyin’s love-making, yet she was somehow drawn 
to meet him and explain; but besides this 
when he was lying at her feet she felt an extra- 
ordinary pleasure. She recalled everything, not 
sparing herself, and now, stifled with shame, she 
could have slapped her own face. 

“Poor Andrey,” she thought, trying, as she 
remembered her husband, to give her face the 
tenderest possible expression—“‘ Varya, my poor 
darling child, does not know what a mother she 


MISFORTUNE 151 


has. Forgive me, my dears. I love you very 
much... very much!.. .” 

And wishing to convince herself that she was 
still a good wife and mother, that corruption 
had not yet touched those “ sanctities ” of hers, 
of which she had spoken to Ilyin, Sophia Pietro- 
vna ran into the kitchen and scolded the cook 
for not having laid the table for Andrey Iyitch. 
She tried to imagine her husband’s tired, hungry 
look, and pitying him aloud, she laid the table 
herself, a thing which she had never done 
before. Then she found her daughter Varya, 
lifted her up in her hands and kissed her passion- 
ately ; the child seemed to her heavy and cold, 
but she would not own it to herself, and she 
began to tell her what a good, dear, splendid 
father she had. 

But when, soon after, Andrey Llyitch arrived, 
she barely greeted him. The flow of imaginary 
feelings had ebbed away without convincing her 
of anything; she was only exasperated and 
enraged by the lie. She sat at the window, 
suffered, and raged. Only in distress can people 
understand how difficult it is to master their 
thoughts and feelings. Sophia Pietrovna said 
afterwards a confusion was going on inside her 
as hard to define as to count a cloud of swiftly 
flying sparrows. Thus from the fact that she 
was delighted at her husband’s arrival and 
pleased with the way he behaved at dinner, 
she suddenly concluded that she had begun to 
hate him. Andrey Ilyitch, languid with hunger 


152 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


and fatigue, while waiting for the soup, fell upon 
the sausage and ate it greedily, chewing loudly 
and moving his temples. 

“My God,” thought Sophia Pietrovna. “I 
do love and respect him, but . . . why does he 
chew so disgustingly.” 

Her thoughts were no less disturbed than her 
feelings. Madame Loubianzev, like all who have 
no experience of the struggle with unpleasant 
thought, did her best not to think of her un- 
happiness, and the more zealously she tried, the 
more vivid Ilyin became to her imagination, the 
sand on his knees, the feathery clouds, the 
WAM. 5 4. 

“Why did I—idiot—go to-day ?”’ she teased 
herself. ‘‘ And am I really a person who can’t 
answer for herself ? ”’ 

Fear has big eyes. When Andrey [Ilyitch 
had finished the last course, she had already 
resolved to tell him everything and so escape 
from danger. 

** Andrey, I want to speak to you seriously,” 
she began after dinner, when her husband was 
taking off his coat and boots in order to have a 
lie down. 

“* Well?” 

** Let’s go away from here! ” 

‘“* How—where to? It’s still too early to go 
to town.” 

‘““ No. Travel or something like that.” 

‘“* Travel,’’ murmured the solicitor, stretching 
himself. ‘‘ I dream of it myself, but where shall 


MISFORTUNE 153 


I get the money, and who'll look after my 
business.”’ 

After a little reflection he added : 

“Yes, really you are bored. Go by yourself 
if you want to.” 

Sophia Pietrovna agreed; but at the same 
time she saw that Ilyin would be glad of the 
opportunity to travel in the same train with 
her, in the same carriage. . . 

She pondered and.looked at her husband, who 
was full fed but still languid. For some reason 
her eyes stopped on his feet, tiny, almost woman- 
ish, in stupid socks. On the toe of both socks 
little threads were standing out. Under the 
drawn blind a bumble bee was knocking against 
the window pane and buzzing. Sophia Piet- 
rovna stared at the threads, listened to the 
bumble bee and pictured her journey . . ¢ Day 
and night Ilyin sits opposite, without taking 
his eyes from her, angry with his weakness and 
pale with the pain of his soul. He brands him- 
self as a libertine, accuses her, tears his hair; but 
when the dark comes he seizes the chance when 
the passengers go to sleep or alight at a station 
and falls on his knees before her and clasps her 
feet, as he did by the bench... 

She realised that she was dreaming... . 

“Listen. I am not going by myself,” she 
said. ‘‘ You must come, too!” 

“* Sophochka, that’s all imagination!” sighed 
Loubianzev. “You must be serious and only 
ask for the possible .. .” 

L 


154. THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


“You'll come when you find out!” thought 
Sophia Pietrovna. 

Having decided to go away at all costs, she 
began to feel free from danger; her thoughts 
fell gradually into order, she became cheerful 
and even allowed herself to think about every- 
thing. Whatever she may think or dream about, 
she is going all the same. While her husband 
still slept, little by little, evening came... 

She sat in the drawing-room playing the piano. 
Outside the window the evening animation, the 
sound of music, but chiefly the thought of her 
own cleverness in mastering her misery gave the 
final touch to her joy. Other women, her easy 
conscience told her, in a position like her own 
would surely not resist, they would spin round 
like a whirlwind; but she was nearly burnt up 
with shame, she suffered and now. she had 
escaped from a danger which perhaps was non- 
existent! Her virtue and resolution moved her 
so much that she even glanced at herself in the 
glass three times. 

When it was dark visitors came. The men 
sat down to cards in the dining-room, the ladies 
were in the drawing room and on the terrace. 
Ilyin came last, he was stern and gloomy and 
looked ill. He sat down on a corner of the sofa 
and did not get up for the whole evening. 
Usually cheerful and full of conversation, he was 
now silent, frowning, and rubbing his eyes. 
When he had to answer a question he smiled 
with difficulty and only with his upper lip, 


MISFORTUNE 155 


answering abruptly and spitefully. He made 
about five jokes in all, but his jokes seemed crude 
and insolent. It seemed to Sophia Pietrovna 
that he was on the brink of hysteria. But only 
now as she sat at the piano did she acknowledge 
that the unhappy man was not in the mood to 
joke, that he was sick in his soul, he could find 
no place for himself. It was for her sake he 
was ruining the best days of his career and his 
youth, wasting his last farthing on a bungalow, 
had left his mother and sisters uncared for, 
and, above all, was breaking down under the 
martyrdom of his struggle. From _ simple, 
common humanity she ought to take him 
periouialy. <5 6 7 

All this was clear to her, even to paining her. 
If she were to go up to Ilyin now and say to him 
** No,” there would be such strength in her voice 
that it would be hard to disobey. But she did 
not go up to him and she did not say it, did not 
even think it ... The petty selfishness of a 
young nature seemed never to have been re- 
vealed in her as strongly as that evening. She 
admitted that Ilyin was unhappy and that he 
sat on the sofa as if on hot coals. She was 
sorry for him, but at the same time the presence 
of the man who loved her so desperately filled 
her with a triumphant sense of her own power. 
She felt her youth, her beauty, her inaccessi- 
bility, and—since she had decided to go away 
—she gave herself full rein this evening. She 
coquetted, laughed continually, she sang with 

L 2 


~ 


156 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


singular emotion, and as one inspired. Every- 
thing made her gay and everything seemed funny. 
It amused her to recall the incident of the bench, 
the sentry looking on. The visitors seemed 
funny to her, Ilyin’s insolent jokes, his tie pin 
which she had never seen before. The pin was 
a little red snake with tiny diamond eyes; the 
snake seemed so funny that she was ready to 
kiss and kiss it. 

Sophia Pietrovna, nervously sang romantic 
songs, with a kind of half-intoxication, and as if 
jeering at another’s sorrow she chose sad, 
melancholy songs that spoke of lost hopes, of 
the past, of old age.... “‘ And old age is 
approaching nearer and nearer,” she sang. 
What had she to do with old age ? 

““ There’s something wrong going on in me,” 
she thought now and then through laughter and 
singing. 

At twelve o’clock the visitors departed. 
Ilyin was the last to go. She still felt warm 
enough about him to go with him to the lower 
step of the terrace. She had the idea of telling 
him that she was going away with her husband, 
just to see what effect this news would have 
upon him. 

The moon was hiding behind the clouds, but 
it was so bright that Sophia Pietrovna could see 
the wind playing with the tails of his overcoat 
and with the creepers on the terrace. It was 
also plain how pale Ilyin was, and how he 
twisted his upper-lip, trying to smile. 


MISFORTUNE 157 


“Sonia, Sonichka, my dear little woman,” 
he murmured, not letting her speak. ‘ My 
darling, my pretty one.” 

In a paroxysm of tenderness with tears in his 
voice, he showered her with endearing words 
each tenderer than the other, and was already 
speaking to her as if she were his wife or his 
mistress. Suddenly and unexpectedly to her, 
he put one arm round her and with the other 
hand he seized her elbow. 

““My dear one, my beauty,” he began to 
whisper, kissing the nape of her neck; “be 
sincere, come to me now.” 

She slipped out of his embrace and lifted her 
head to break out in indignation and revolt. 
But indignation did not come, and of all her 
praiseworthy virtue and purity, there was left 
only enough for her to say that which all average 
women say in similar circumstances : 

“You must be mad.” 

“But really let us go,’ continued Ilyin. 
** Just now and over there by the bench I felt 
convinced that you, Sonia, were as_ helpless 
as myself. You too will be all the worse for it. 
You love me, and you are making a useless 
bargain with your conscience.” 

Seeing that she was leaving him he seized her 
by her lace sleeve and ended quickly : 

“If not to-day, then to-morrow; but you 
will have to give in. What’s the good of 
putting if off? My dear, my darling Sonia, 
the verdict has been pronounced. Why post- 


158 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


pone the execution? Why deceive your- 
self?” <s 

Sophia Pietrovna broke away from him and 
suddenly disappeared inside the door. She 
returned to the drawing-room, shut the piano 
mechanically, stared for a long time at the cover 
of a music book, and sat down. She could 
neither stand nor think. . . . From her agitation 
and passion remained only an awful weakness 
mingled with laziness and tiredness. Her con- 
science whispered to her that she had behaved 
wickedly and foolishly to-night, like a mad- 
woman; that just now she had been kissed on 
the terrace, and even now she had some strange 
sensation in her waist and in her elbow. Nota 
soul was in the drawing-room. Only a single 
candle was burning. Madame Loubianzev sat 
on a little round stool before the piano without 
strirring as if waiting for something, and as if 
taking advantage of her extreme exhaustion 
and the dark a heavy unconquerable desire 
began to possess her. Like a boa-constrictor, 
it enchained her limbs and soul. It grew every 
second and was no longer threatening, but stood 
clear before her in all its nakedness. 

She sat thus for half an hour, not moving, and 
not stopping herself from thinking of [lyin. 
Then she got up lazily and went slowly into the 
bed-room. Andrey Ilyitch was in bed already. 
She sat by the window and gave herself to her 
desire. She felt no more “confusion.” All her 
feelings and thoughts pressed lovingly round 


MISFORTUNE 159 


some clear purpose. She still had a mind to © 
struggle, but instantly she waved her hand 
impotently, realising the strength and the deter- 
mination of the foe. To fight him power and 
strength were necessary, but her birth, upbringing 
and life had given her nothing on which to 
lean. 

““You’re immoral, you’re_ horrible,” she 
tormented herself for her weakness. ‘“‘ You’re 
a nice sort, you are!” 

So indignant was her insulted modesty at this 
weakness that she called herself all the bad 
names that she knew and she related to herself 
many insulting, degrading truths. Thus she 
told herself that she never was moral, and she had 
not fallen before only because there was no pre- 
text, that her day-long struggle had been 
nothing but a game and a comedy... . 

* Let us admit that I struggled,” she thought, 
“but what kind of a fight was it? Even 
prostitutes struggle before they sell themselves, 
and still they do sell themselves. It’s a pretty 
sort of fight. Like milk, turns in a day.” She 
realised that it was not love that drew her from 
her home nor Ilyin’s personality, but the sen- 
sations which await her. . . . A little week-end 
type like the rest of them. 

“* When the young bird’s mother was killed,” 
a hoarse tenor finished singing. 

If I am going, it’s time, thought Sophia 
Pietrovna. Her heart began to beat with a 
frightful force. 


160 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


** Andrey,” she almost cried. ‘ Listen. Shall 
we go away? Shall we? Yes?” 

“Yes. ... Ive told you already. You go 
alone.” 

** But listen,” she said, “* if you don’t come too, 
you may lose me. I seem to be in love already.” 

* Who with ?”’ Andrey Ilyitch asked. 

“It must be all the same for you, who with,” 
Sophia Pietrovna cried out. 

Andrey Ilyitch got up, dangled his feet over 
the side of the bed, with a look of surprise at 
the dark form of his wife. 

“* Imagination,” he yawned. 

He could not believe her, but all the same he 
was frightened. After having thought for a 
while, and asked his wife some unimportant 
questions, he gave his views of the family, of | 
infidelity. . . . He spoke sleepily for about ten 
minutes and then lay down again. His remarks 
had no success. There are a great many 
opinions in this world, and more than half of 
them belong to people who have never known 
misery. 

In spite of the late hour, the bungalow people 
were still moving behind their windows. Sophia 
Pietrovna put on a long coat and stood for a 
while, thinking. She still had force of mind to 
say to her sleepy husband : 

“Are you asleep? I’m going for a little 
walk. Would you like to come with me?” 

That was her last hope. Receiving no answer, 
she walked out. It was breezy and cool. She 


MISFORTUNE 161 


did not feel the breeze or the darkness but 
walked on and on..... An irresistible power 
drove her, and it seemed to her that if she 
stopped that power would push her in the back. 
**You’re an immoral woman,” she murmured 
mechanically. ‘‘ You’re horrible.” 

She was choking for breath, burning with 
shame, did not feel her feet under her, for that 
which drove her along was stronger than her 
shame, her reason, her fear. .. . 





AFTER THE THEATRE 


NapyA ZELENINA had just returned with her- 
mother from the theatre, where they had been 
to see a performance of “ Eugene Oniegin.” 
Entering her room, she quickly threw off her 
dress, loosened her hair, and sat down hurriedly 
in her petticoat and a white blouse to write a 
letter in the style of Tatiana. 

“IT love you,”—she wrote—‘ but you don’t 
love me; no, you don’t!” 

The moment she had written this, she smiled. 

She was only sixteen years old, and so far she 
had not been in love. She knew that Gorny, 
the officer, and Gronsdiev, the student, loved her ; 
but now, after the theatre, she wanted to doubt 
their love. To be unloved and unhappy—how 
interesting. There is something beautiful, affect- 
ing, romantic in the fact that one loves deeply 
while the other is indifferent. Oniegin is inter- 
esting because he does not love at all, and 
Tatiana is delightful because she is very much 
in love; but if they loved each other equally 
and were happy, they would seem boring, in- 


stead. 
163 


164 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


“Don’t go on protesting that you love me,” 
Nadya wrote on, thinking of Gorny, the officer, 
“IT can’t believe you. You’re very clever, 
educated, serious; you have a great talent, and 
perhaps, a splendid future waiting, but I am an 
uninteresting poor-spirited girl, and you yourself 
know quite well that I shall only be a drag upon 
your life. It’s true I carried you off your feet, 
and you thought you had met your ideal in me, 
but that was a mistake. Already you are asking 
yourself in despair, ‘ Why did I meet this girl ?’ 
Only your kindness prevents you from confessing 
it,” 

Nadya pitied herself. She wept and went on. 

“If it were not so difficult for me to leave 
mother and brother I would put on a nun’s 
gown and go where my eyes direct me. You 
would then be free to love another. If I were 
to die!” 

Through her tears she could not make out what 
she had written. Brief rainbows trembled on 
the table, on the floor and the ceiling, as though 
_ Nadya were looking through a prism. Impossible 
to write. She sank back in her chair and began 
to think of Gorny. 

Oh, how fascinating, how interesting men are ! 
Nadya remembered the beautiful expression of 
Gorny’s face, appealing, guilty, and tender, 
when someone discussed music with him,—the 
efforts he made to prevent the passion from 
sounding in his voice. Passion must be con- 
cealed in a society where cold reserve and in- 


AFTER THE THEATRE 165 


difference are the signs of good breeding. And 
he does try to conceal it, but he does not succeed, 
and everybody knows quite well that he has a 
passion for music. Never-ending discussions 
about music, blundering pronouncements by 
men who do not understand—keep him in in- 
cessant tension. He is scared, timid, silent. He 
plays superbly, as an ardent pianist. If he were 
not an officer, he would be a famous musician. 

The tears dried in her eyes. Nadya remem- 
bered how Gorny told her of his love at a sym- 
phony concert, and again rayhuies tte by the 
cloak-room. 

“I am so glad you have at last made the 
acquaintance of the student Gronsdiev,”’ she 
continued to write. ‘‘ He is a very clever man, 
and you are sure to love him. Yesterday he 
was sitting with us till two o’clock in the morn- 
ing. We were all so happy. I was sorry that 
you hadn’t come to us. He said a lot of re- 
markable things.” 

Nadya laid her hands on the table and lowered 
her head. Her hair covered the letter. She 
remembered that Gronsdiev also loved her, and 
that he had the same right to her letter as 
Gorny. Perhaps she had better write to Grons- 
diev? For no cause, a happiness began to 
quicken in her breast. At first it was a little 
one, rolling about in her breast like a rubber 
ball. Then it grew broader and bigger, and 
broke forth like a wave. Nadya had already 
forgotten about Gorny and Gronsdiev. Her 


166 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


thoughts became confused. The happiness grew 
more and more. From her breast it ran into her 
arms and legs, and it seemed that a light fresh 
breeze blew over her head, stirring her hair. 
Her shoulders trembled with quiet laughter. 
The table and the lampglass trembled. Tears 
from her eyes splashed the letter. She was 
powerless to stop her laughter ; and to convince 
herself that she had a reason for it, she hastened 
to remember something funny. 

‘“* What a funny poodle!” she cried, feeling 
that she was choking with laughter. ‘‘ What 
a funny poodle!” 

She remembered how Gronsdiev was playing 
with Maxim the poodle after tea yesterday ; 
how he told a story afterwards of a very clever 
poodle who was chasing a crow in the yard. The 
crow gave him a look and said: 

** Oh, you swindler ! ” 

The poodle did not know he had to do with 
a learned crow. He was terribly confused, and 
ran away dumfounded. Afterwards he began 
to bark. 

“No, I’d better love Gronsdiev,”’ Nadya de- 
cided and tore up the letter. 

She began to think of the student, of his 
love, of her own love, with the result that 
the thoughts in her head swam apart and she 
thought about everything, about her mother, 
the street, the pencil, the piano. She was 
happy thinking, and found that everything 
was good, magnificent. Her happiness told 


AFTER THE THEATRE 167 


her that this was not all, that a little later 
it would be still better. Soon it will be 
spring, summer. They will go with mother to 
Gorbiki in the country. Gorny will come for 
his holidays. He will walk in the orchard with 
her, and make love to her. Gronsdiev will come 
too. He will play croquet with her and bowls. 
He will tell funny, wonderful stories. She 
passionately longed for the orchard, the dark- 
ness, the pure sky, the stars. Again her shoulders 
trembled with laughter and she seemed to awake 
to a smell of wormwood in the room; and a 
branch was tapping at the window. 

She went to her bed and sat down. She did 
not know what to do with her great happiness. 
It overwhelmed her. She stared at the crucifix 
which hung at the head of her bed and saying: 

** Dear God, dear God, dear God.” 





THAT WRETCHED BOY 


Ivan Ivanicu Lapxin, a pleasant looking 
young man, and Anna Zamblizky, a young girl 
with a little snub nose, walked down the sloping 
bank and sat down on the bench. The bench 
was close to the water’s edge, among thick 
bushes of young willow. A heavenly spot! 
You sat down, and you were hidden from the 
world. Only the fish could see you and the 
catspaws which flashed over the water like 
lightning. The two young persons were equipped 
with rods, fish hooks, bags, tins of worms and 
everything else necessary. Once seated, they 
immediately began to fish. 

“*T am glad that we’re left alone at last,’ said 
Lapkin, looking round. I’ve got a lot to tell 
you, Anna—tremendous ... when I saw you for 
the first time. . . you’ve got a nibble. . . I under- 
stood then—why I am alive, I knew where my 
idol was, to whom I can devote my honest, hard- 
working life. . . It must be a big one . . . it is 
biting . . . When I saw you—for the first time 
in my life I fell in love—fell in love passionately ! 
Don’t pull. Let it go on biting . . . Tell me, 

169 ! M 


170 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


darling, tell me—will you let me hope? No! 
I’m not worth it. I dare not even think of it— 
may I hope for... Pull! 

Anna lifted her hand that held the rod—pulled, 
cried out. A silvery green fish shone in the air. 

‘““Goodness! it’s a perch! Help—quick! 
It’s slipping off.’’ The perch tore itself from the 
hook—danced in the grass towards its native 
element and . . . leaped into the water. 

But instead of the little fish that he was 
chasing, Lapkin quite by accident caught hold 
of Anna’s hand—quite by accident pressed it to 
his lips. She drew back, but it was too late; 
quite by accident their lips met and kissed ;_ yes, 
it was an absolute accident! They kissed and 
kissed. Then came vows and assurances... . 
Blissful moments! But there is no such thing 
as absolute happiness in this life. If happiness 
itself does not contain a poison, poison will enter 
in from without. Which happened this time. 
Suddenly, while the two were kissing, a laugh 
was heard. They looked at the river and were 
paralysed. The schoolboy Kolia, Anna’s 
brother, was standing in the water, watching the 
young people and maliciously laughing. 

* Ah—ha! Kissing!” said he. ‘“ Right O, 
Ill tell Mother.” 

““T hope that you—as a man of honour,” 
Lapkin muttered, blushing. “ It’s disgusting to 
spy on us, it’s loathsome to tell tales, it’s rotten. 
As a man of honour .. .” 

“Give me a shilling, then Ill shut up!” the 


ee ee ee 


Tae ee ee 





THAT WRETCHED BOY 171 


man of honour retorted. ‘If you don’t, I'll 
tell.” 

Lapkin took a shilling out of his pocket and 
gave it to Kolia, who squeezed it in his wet fist, 
whistled, and swam away. And the young 
people did not kiss any more just then. 

Next day Lapkin brought Kolia some paints 
and a ball from town, and his sister gave him all 
her empty pill boxes. Then they had to present 
him with a set of studs like dogs’ heads. The 
wretched boy enjoyed this game immensely, and 
to keep it-going he began to spy on them.. 
Wherever Lapkin and Anna went, he was there 
too. He did not leave them alone for a single 
moment. - 

** Beast!’ Lapkin gnashed his teeth. “So 
young and yet such a full fledged scoundrel. 
What on earth will become of him later!” 

During the whole of July the poor lovers had 
no life apart from him. He threatened to tell 
on them; he dogged them and demanded more 
presents. Nothing satisfied him—finally he 
hinted at a gold watch. All right, they had to 
promise the watch. 

Once, at table, when biscuits were being 
handed round, he burst out laughing and said 
to Lapkin: “Shall I let on? Ah—ha!” 

Lapkin blushed fearfully and instead of a 
biscuit he began to chew his table napkin. 
Anna jumped up from the table and rushed out 
of the room. 

And this state of things went on until the end 

M 2 


= 


172 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


of August, up to the day when Lapkin at last 
proposed to Anna. Ah! What a happy day 
that was! When he had spoken to her parents 
and obtained their consent Lapkin rushed into 
the garden after Kolia. When he found him he 
nearly cried for joy and caught hold of the 
wretched boy by the ear. Anna, who was also 
looking for Kolia came running up and grabbed 
him by the other ear. You should have seen the 
happiness depicted on their faces while Kolia™ 
roared and begged them : 

** Darling, precious pets, I won’t do it again. 
O-oh—O-oh! Forgive me!” And both of them 
confessed afterwards that during all the time 
they were in love with each other they never 
experienced such happiness, such overwhelming 
joy as during those moments when they 
pulled the wretched boy’s ears. 


ENEMIES 


Azout ten o’clock of a dark September evening 
the Zemstvo doctor Kirilov’s only son, six-year- 
old Andrey, died of diphtheria. As the doctor’s 
wife dropped on to her knees before the dead 
child’s cot.and the first paroxysm of despair 
took hold of her, the bell rang sharply in the 
hall. 

When the diphtheria came all the servants were 
sent away from the house, that very morning. 
Kirilov himself went to the door, just as he was, 
in his shirt-sleeves with his waistcoat un- 
buttoned, without wiping his wet face or hands, 
which had been burnt with carbolic acid. It 
was dark in the hall, and of the person who 
entered could be distinguished only his middle 
height, a white scarf and a big, extraordinarily 
pale face, so pale that it seemed as though its 
appearance made the hall brighter... . 

“* Is the doctor in?” the visitor asked abruptly. 

‘*T’m at home,” answered Kirilov. ‘‘ What 
do you want?” 

“Oh, you’re the doctor? I’m so glad!” 


The visitor was overjoyed and began to seek for 
178 


174 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


the doctor’s hand in the darkness. He found it 
and squeezed it hard in his own. “I’m very 

. very glad! We were introduced... I 
am Aboguin ... had the pleasure of meeting 
you this summer at Mr. Gnouchev’s. I am very 
glad to have found you at home. . . . For God’s 
sake, don’t say you won’t come with me imme- 
diately. . . . My wife has been taken danger- 
ously ill . . . I have the carriage with me. . . .” 

From the visitor’s voice and movements it 
was evident that he had been in a state of violent 
agitation. Exactly as though he had been 
frightened by a fire or a mad dog, he could 
hardly restrain his hurried breathing, and he 
spoke quickly in a trembling voice. In _ his 
speech there sounded a note of real sincerity, 
of childish fright. Like all men who are fright- 
ened and dazed, he spoke in short, abrupt 
phrases and uttered many superfluous, quite 
unnecessary, words. 

‘“*T was afraid I shouldn’t find you at home,” 
he continued. ‘“‘ While I was coming to you 
I suffered terribly. . . . Dress yourself and let us 
go, for God’s sake. . . . It happened like this. 
Papchinsky came to me—Alexander Siemiono- 
vich, you know him... . We were chatting. 
. .. Then we sat down to tea. Suddenly my 
wife cries out, presses her hands to her heart, 
and falls back in her chair. We carried her off 
to her bed and . . . and I rubbed her forehead 
with sal-volatile, and splashed her with water. 
. . . She lies like a corpse. . . . I’m afraid that 


ENEMIES 175 


her heart’s failed. ... Let us go... Her 
father too died of heart-failure.”’ 

Kirilov listened in silence as though he did not 
understand the Russian language. 

When Aboguin once more mentioned Pap- » 
chinsky and his wife’s father, and once more 
began to seek for the doctor’s hand in the dark- 
ness, the doctor shook his head and said, drawling 
each word listlessly : 

** Excuse me, but I can’t go. . . . Five minutes 
ago my ... my son died.” 

“Is that true?” Aboguin whispered, step- 
ping back. ‘“* My God, what an awful moment 
tocome! It’saterribly fated day .. . terribly! 
What a coincidence . . . and it might have been 
on purpose!” 

Aboguin took hold of the door handle and 
drooped his head in meditation. Evidently he 
was hesitating, not knowing whether to go away, 
or to ask the doctor once more. 

‘* Listen,” he said eagerly, seizing Kirilov by- 
the sleeve. “I fully understand your state! 
God knows I’m ashamed to try to hold your 
attention at such a moment, but what can I do ? 
Think yourself—who can I go to? There isn’t 
another doctor here besides you. For heaven’s 
sake {come. Tm not asking for myself. It’s 
not I that’s ill!” 

Silence began. Kirilov turned his back to 
Aboguin, stood still for a while and slowly went 
out of the hall into the drawing-room. To judge 
by his uncertain, machine-like movement, and 


176 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


by the attentiveness with which he arranged the 
hanging shade on the unlighted lamp in the 
- drawing-room and consulted a thick book which 
lay on the table—at such a moment he had 
neither purpose nor desire, nor did he think of 
anything, and probably had already forgotten 
that there was a stranger standing in his hall. 
The gloom and the quiet of the drawing-room 
apparently increased his insanity. As he went 
from the drawing-room to his study he raised 
his right foot higher than he need, felt with his 
hands for the door-posts, and then one felt a 
certain perplexity in his whole figure, as though 
he had entered a strange house by chance, or 
for the first time in his life had got drunk, and 
now was giving himself up in bewilderment to 
the new sensation. A wide line of light stretched 
across the bookshelves on one wall of the study ; 
this light, together with the heavy stifling smell 
of carbolic acid and ether came from the door 
ajar that led from the study into the bedroom... 
The doctor sank into a chair before the table ; 
for a while he looked drowsily at the shining 
books, then rose and went into the bedroom. 
Here, in the bedroom, dead quiet reigned. 
Everything, down to the last trifle, spoke elo- 
quently of the tempest undergone, of weariness, 
and everything rested. The candle which stood 
among a close crowd of phials, boxes and jars on 
the stool and the big lamp on the chest of drawers 
brightly lit the room. On the bed, by the win- 
dow, the boy lay open-eyed, with a look of 


ENEMIES 177 


wonder on his face. He did not move, but it 
seemed that his open eyes became darker and 
darker every second and sank into his skull. 
Having laid her hands on his body and hid her 
face in the folds of the bed-clothes, the mother 
now was on her knees before the bed. Like the 
boy she did not move, but how much living 
movement was felt in the coil of her body and 
in her hands! She was pressing close to the bed 
with her whole being, with eager vehemence, as 
though she were afraid to violate the quiet and 
comfortable pose which she had found at last 
for her weary body. Blankets, cloths, basins, 
splashes on the floor, brushes and spoons scat- 
tered everywhere, a white bottle of lime-water, 
the stifling heavy air itself—everything died 
away, and as it were plunged into quietude. 

The doctor stopped by his wife, thrust his 
hands into his trouser pockets and _ bending 
his head on one side looked fixedly at his son. 
His face showed indifference; only the drops 
which glistened on his beard revealed that he 
had been lately weeping. 

The repulsive terror of which we think when 
we speak of death was absent from the bed-room. 
In the pervading dumbness, in the mother’s 
pose, in the indifference of the doctor’s face was 
something attractive that touched the heart, the 
subtle and elusive beauty of human grief, which 
it will take men long to understand and describe, 
and only music, it seems, is able to express. 
Beauty too was felt in the stern stillness. Kirilov 


178 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


and his wife were silent and did not weep, as 
though they confessed all the poetry of their 
condition. As once the season of their youth 
passed away, so now in this boy their right to 
bear children had passed away, alas! for ever 
to eternity. The doctor is forty-four years old, 
already grey and looks like an old man; his 
faded sick wife is thirty-five. Andrey was not 
merely the only son but the last. 

In contrast to his wife the doctor’s nature be- 
longed to those which feel the necessity of move- 
ment when their soul is in pain. After standing 
by his wife for about five minutes, he passed from 
the bed-room, lifting his right foot too high, 
into a little room half filled with a big broad 
divan. From there he went to the kitchen. 
After wandering about the fireplace and the 
cook’s bed, he stooped through a little door and 
came into the hall. 

Here he saw the white scarf and the pale face 
again. 

*“* At last,” sighed Aboguin, seizing the door- 
handle. ‘ Let us go, please.” 

The doctor shuddered, glanced at him and 
remembered. 

“Listen. I’ve told you already that I can’t 
go,”’ he said, livening. ‘“‘ What a strange idea ! ” 

*“ Doctor, ’'m made of flesh and blood, too. 
I fully understand your condition. I sympathise 
with you,” Aboguin said in an imploring voice, 
putting his hand to his scarf. ‘* But I am not 
asking for myself. My wife is dying. If you 


ENEMIES 179 


had heard her ery, if you’d seen her face, you 
would understand my insistence! My God— 
and I thought that you’d gone to dress your- 
self. The time is precious, Doctor! Let us go, 
I beg of you.” ; 

“T can’t come,” Kirilov said after a pause, 
and stepped into his drawing-room. 

Aboguin followed him and seized him by the 
sleeve. 

“You’re in sorrow. I understand. But 
I’m not asking you to cure a toothache, or to 
give expert evidence,—but to save a human 
life.’ He went on imploring like a beggar. 
“This life is more than any personal grief. I 
ask you for courage, for a brave deed—in the 
name of humanity.” 

“Humanity cuts both ways,” Kirilov said 
irritably. ‘‘ In the name of the same humanity 
I ask you not to take me away. My God, what 
a strange idea! I can hardly stand on my feet 
and you frighten me with humanity. Dm not 
fit for anything now. I won’t go for anything. 
With whom shall I leave my wife? No, no....” 

Kirilov flung out his open hands and drew back. 

“And ...and don’t ask me,” he con- 
tinued, disturbed. ‘‘ I’m sorry. . . . Under the 
Laws, Volume XIII., I’m obliged to go and you 
have the right to drag me by the neck. ... 
Well, drag me, but... I’m not fit.... Pm 
not even able to speak. Excuse me.” 

“It’s quite unfair to speak to mein that tone, 
Doctor,” said Aboguin, again taking the doctor 


180 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


by the sleeve. “ The thirteenth volume be 
damned! I have no right to do violence to your 
will. If you want to, come; if you don’t, then 
God be with you; but it’s not to your will that 
I apply, but to your feelings. A young woman 
is dying! You say your son died justnow. Who 
could understand my terror better than you?” | 

Aboguin’s voice trembled with agitation. 
His tremor and his tone were much more con- 
vincing than his words. Aboguin was sincere, 
but it is remarkable that every phrase he used 
came out stilted, soulless, inopportunely florid, 
and as it were insulted the atmosphere of the 
doctor’s house and the woman who was dying. 
He felt it himself, and in his fear of being mis- 
understood he exerted himself to the utmost to 
make his voice soft and tender so as to con- 
vince by the sincerity of his tone at least, if not 
by his words. As a rule, however deep and 
beautiful the words they affect only the un- 
concerned. They cannot always satisfy those 
who are happy or distressed because the highest 
expression of happiness or distress is most often 
silence. Lovers understand each other best 
when they are silent, and a fervent passionate 
speech at the graveside affects only outsiders. 
To the widow and children it seems cold and 
trivial. 

Kirilov stood still and was silent. When 
Aboguin uttered some more words on the higher 
vocation of a doctor, and self-sacrifice, the doctor 
sternly asked : 


ENEMIES 181 


“Is it far?” 

** Thirteen or fourteen versts. I’ve got good 
horses, doctor. I give you my word of honour 
that I'l take you there and back in an hour. 
Only an hour.” 

The last words impressed the. doctor more 
strongly than the references to humanity or 
the doctor’s vocation. He thought for a while 
and said with a sigh. 

“* Well, let us go!” 

He went off quickly, with a step that was now 
sure, to his study and soon after returned in a 
long coat. Aboguin, delighted, danced im- 
patiently round him, helped him on with his 
overcoat, and accompanied him out of the house. 

Outside it was dark, but brighter than in the 
hall. Now in the darkness the tall stooping 
figure of the doctor was clearly visible with 
the long, narrow beard and the aquiline nose. 
Besides his pale face Aboguin’s big face could 
now be seen and a little student’s cap which 
hardly covered the crown of his head. The 
searf showed white only in front, but behind it 
was hid under his long hair. 

‘“* Believe me, ’m able to appreciate your 
magnanimity,” murmured Aboguin, as he helped 
the doctor to a seat in the carriage. “‘ We'll 
whirl away. Luke, dear man, drive as fast as 
you can, do!” 

The coachman drove quickly. First appeared 
a row of bare buildings, which stood along the 
hospital yard. It was dark everywhere, save 


182 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


that at the end of the yard a bright light from 
someone’s window broke through the garden 
fence, and three windows in the upper story of the 
separate house seemed to be paler than the air. 
Then the carriage drove into dense obscurity 
where you could smell mushroom damp, and hear 
the whisper of the trees. The noise of the wheels 
awoke the rooks who began to stir in the leaves 
and raised a doleful, bewildered cry as if they 
knew that the doctor’s son was dead and Abog- 
uin’s wife ill. Then began to appear separate 
trees, a shrub. Sternly gleamed the pond, 
where big black shadows slept. The carriage 
rolled along over an even plain. Now the cry 
of the rooks was but faintly heard far away 
behind. Soon it became completely still. 

Almost all the way Kirilov and Aboguin were 
silent; save that once Aboguin sighed pro- 
foundly and murmured. 

“It’s terrible pain. One never loves his 
nearest so much as when there is the risk of 
losing them.” 

And when the carriage was quietly passing 
through the river, Kirilov gave a sudden start, 
as though the dashing of the water frightened 
him, and he began to move impatiently. 

“Let me go,” he said in anguish. “I'll 
come to you later. I only want to send the 
attendant to my wife. She is all alone.” 

Aboguin was silent. The carriage, swaying 
and rattling against the stones, drove over the 
sandy bank and went on. Kirilov began to toss 


ENEMIES 183 


about in anguish, and glanced around. Behind 
the road was visible in the scant light of the stars 
and the willows that fringed the bank disappear- 
ing into the darkness. To the right the plain 
stretched smooth and boundless as heaven. On 
it in the distance here and there dim lights were 
‘burning, probably on the turf-pits. To the 
left, parallel with the road stretched a little hill, 
tufted with tiny shrubs, and on the hill a big 
half-moon stood motionless, red, slightly veiled 
with a mist, and surrounded with fine clouds 
which seemed to be gazing upon it from every 
side, and guarding it, lest it should disappear. 

_ In all nature one felt something hopeless and 
sick. Like a fallen woman who sits alone in a 
dark room trying not to think of her past, the 
earth languished with reminiscence of spring and 
summer and waited in apathy for ineluctable 
winter. Wherever one’s glance turned nature 
showed everywhere like a dark, cold, bottomless 
pit, whence neither Kirilov nor Aboguin nor the 
red half-moon could escape. . . .« 

The nearer the carriage approached the 
destination the more impatient did Aboguin 
become. He moved about, jumped up and 
stared over the driver’s shoulder in front of him. 
And when at last the carriage drew up at the 
foot of the grand staircase, nicely covered with a 
striped linen awning and he looked up at the 
lighted windows of the first floor one could hear 
his breath trembling. 

“Tf anything happens . . . I shan’t survive 


184 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


it,” he said entering the hall with the doctor 
and slowly rubbing his hands in his agitation. 
** But I can’t hear any noise. That means it’s 
all right so far,” he added, listening to the 
stillness. 

No voices or steps were heard in the hall. 
For all the bright illumination the whole house 
seemed asleep. Now the doctor and Aboguin 
who had been in darkness up till now could 
examine each other. The doctor was tall, with 
a stoop, slovenly dressed, and his face was plain. 
There was something unpleasantly sharp, un- 
gracious, and severe in his thick negro lips, his 
aquiline nose and his faded, indifferent look. 
His tangled hair, his sunken temples, the early 
grey in his long thin beard, that showed his 
shining chin, his pale grey complexion and the 
slipshod awkwardness of his manners—the 
hardness of it all suggested to the mind bad times 
undergone, an unjust lot and weariness of life 
and men. To look at the hard figure of the man, 
you could not believe that he had a wife and 
could weep over his child. Aboguin revealed 
something different. He was robust, solid and 
fair-haired, with a big head and large, yet soft, 
features, exquisitely dressed in the latest fashion. 
In his carriage, his tight-buttoned coat and his 
mane of hair you felt something noble and leonine. 
He walked with his head straight and his chest 
prominent, he spoke in a pleasant baritone, and 
in his manner of removing his scarf or arranging 
his hair there appeared a subtle, almost feminine, 


ENEMIES 185 


elegance. Even his pallor and childish fear as 
he glanced upwards to the staircase while taking 
off his coat, did not disturb his carriage or take 
from the satisfaction, the health and aplomb 
which his figure breathed. 

*“‘ There’s no one about, nothing I can hear,” 
he said walking upstairs. “No commotion. 
May God be good! ” 

He accompanied the doctor through the hall 
to a large salon, where a big piano showed dark 
and a lustre hung in a white cover. Thence 
they both passed into a small and beautiful 
drawing-room, very cosy, filled with a pleasant, 
rosy half-darkness. 
~ * Please sit here a moment, Doctor,’ said 
Aboguin, ““I... I won’t be a second. Yl 
just have a look and tell them.” 

Kirilov was left alone. The luxury of the 
drawing-room, the pleasant half-darkness, even 
his presence in a stranger’s unfamiliar house 
evidently did not move him. He sat in a chair 
looking at his hands burnt with carbolic acid. 
He had no more than a glimpse of the bright red 
lampshade, the ’cello case, and when he looked 
sideways across the room to where the clock was 
ticking, he noticed a stuffed wolf, as solid and 
satisfied as Aboguin himself. 

It was still. . . . Somewhere far away in the 
other rooms someone uttered a loud “Ah!” A 
glass door, probably a cupboard door, rang, and 
again everything was still. After five minutes 
had passed, Kirilov did not look at his hands 

N 


186 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


any more. He raised his eyes to the door 
through which Aboguin had disappeared. 
Aboguin was standing on the threshold, but 
not the same man as went out. The expres- 
sion of satisfaction and subtle elegance had dis- 
appeared from him. His face and hands, the 
attitude of his body were distorted with a dis- 
gusting expression either of horror or of torment- 
ing physical pain. His nose, lips, moustache, 
all his features were moving and as it were 
trying to tear themselves away from his face, 
but the eyes were as though laughing from pain. 
Aboguin took a long heavy step into the middle 
of the room, stooped, moaned, and shook his fists. 
““ Deceived!”’ he cried, emphasising the syllable 
cet. ‘“‘She deceived me! She’s gone! She fell 
ill and sent me for the doctor only to run away 
with this fool Papchinsky. My God!” 
Aboguin stepped heavily towards the doctor, 
thrust his white soft fists before his face, and 
went on wailing, shaking his fists the while. 
**She’s gone off! She’s deceived me! But 
why this lie? My God, my God! Why this 
dirty, foul trick, this devilish, serpent’s game ? 
What have I done to her? She’s gone off.” 
Tears gushed from his eyes. He turned on 
his heel and began to pace the drawing-room. 
Now in his short jacket and his fashionable 
narrow trousers in which his legs seemed too 
thin for his body, he was extraordinarily like a 
lion. Curiosity kindled in the doctor’s impassive 
face. He rose and eyed Aboguin. 


ENEMIES 187 


** Well, where’s the patient ? ” 

“The patient, the patient,” cried Aboguin, 
laughing, weeping, and still shaking his fists. 
*She’s not ill, but accursed. Vile—dastardly. 
The Devil himself couldn’t have planned a fouler 
trick. She sent me so that she could run away 
with a fool, an utter clown, an Alphonse! My 
God, far better she should have died. I'll not 
bear it. I shall not bear it.” 

The doctor stood up straight. His eyes began 
to blink, filled with tears; his thin beard began 
to move with his jaw right and left. 

*““ What’s this?” he asked, looking curiously 
about. ‘“‘ My child’s dead. My wife in anguish, 
alone in all the house . . . I can hardly stand 
on my feet, I haven’t slept for three nights .. . 
and I’m made to play in a vulgar comedy, to 
play the part of a stage property! Idon’t... 
I don’t understand it!” 

Aboguin opened one fist, flung a crumpled 
note on the floor and trod on it, as upon an insect 
he wished to crush. 

** And I didn’t see . . . didn’t understand,” 
he said through his set teeth, brandishing one 
fist round his head, with an expression as though 
someone had trod on a corn. “I didn’t notice 
how he came to see us every day. I didn’t notice 
that he came in a carriage to-day! What was 
the carriage for ? AndIdidn’tsee! Innocent!” 

“IT don’t ...I1 don’t understand,” the 
doctor murmured. ‘* What’s it all mean? It’s 
jeering at a man, laughing at a man’s suffering ! 

N 2 


188 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


That’s impossible . . . I’ve never seen it in my 
life before ! ” 

With the dull bewilderment of a man who has 
just begun to understand that someone has 
bitterly offended him, the doctor shrugged his 
shoulders, waved his hands and not knowing what 
to say or do, dropped exhausted into a chair. 

‘* Well, she didn’t love me any more. She 
loved another man. Very well. But why the 
deceit, why this foul treachery?” Aboguin 
spoke with tears in his voice. “ Why, why? 
What have I done to you? Listen, doctor,” 
he said passionately approaching Kirilov. ‘“ You 
were the unwilling witness of my misfortune, and 
I am not going to hide the truth from you. I 
swear I loved this woman. I loved her with 
devotion, like a slave. I sacrificed everything 
for her. I broke with my family, I gave up 
the service and my music. I forgave her things 
I could not have forgiven my mother and sister 
. . . I never once gave her an angry look... 
I never gave her any cause. Why this lie then ? 
I do not demand love, but why this abominable 
deceit ? If you don’t love any more then speak 
out honestly, above all when you know what I 
feel about this matter...” 

With tears in his eyes and trembling in all his 
bones, Aboguin was pouring out his soul to the 
doctor. He spoke passionately, pressing both 
hands to his heart. He revealed all the family 
secrets without hesitation, as though he were 
glad that these secrets were being torn from his 


ENEMIES 189 


heart. Had he spoken thus for an hour or two 
and poured out all his soul, he would surely 
have been easier. 

Who can say whether, had the doctor listened 
and given him friendly sympathy, he would not, 
as so often happens, have been reconciled to his 
grief unprotesting, without turning to un- 
profitable follies? But it happened otherwise. 
While Aboguin was speaking the offended doctor 
changed countenance visibly. The indifference 
and amazement in his face gradually gave way 
to an expression of bitter outrage, indignation, 
and anger. His features became still sharper, 
harder, and more forbidding. When Aboguin 
_ put before his eyes the photograph of his young 
wife, with a pretty, but dry, inexpressive face 
like a nun’s, and asked if it were possible to look 
at that face and grant that it could express a lie, 
the doctor suddenly started away, with flashing 
eyes, and said, coarsely forging out each several 
word : 

“Why do you tell me all this? I do not want 
to hear! I don’t want to,” he cried and banged 
his fist upon the table. “I don’t want your’ 
trivial vulgar secrets—to Hell with them. You 
dare not tell me such trivialities. Or do you 
think I have not yet been insulted enough! 
That I’m a lackey to whom you can give the last 
insult? Yes?” 

Aboguin drew back from Kirilov and stared 
at him in surprise. 

“Why did you bring me here?” the doctor 


199 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


went on, shaking his beard. ‘‘ You marry out of 
high spirits, get angry out of high spirits, and 
make a melodrama—but where do I come in? 
What have I got to do with your romances ? 
Leave me alone! Get on with your noble grab- 
bing, parade your humane ideas, play—’ the 
doctor gave a side-glance at the ’cello-case—* the 
double-bass and the trombone, stuff yourselves 
like capons, but don’t dare to jeer at a real man ! 
If you can’t respect him, then you can at least 
spare him your attentions.” 

‘“* What does all this mean ?”? Aboguin asked, 
blushing. 

““ It means that it’s vile and foul to play with 
a man! I’m a doctor. You consider doctors 
and all men who work and don’t reek of scent and 
harlotry, your footmen, your mauvais tons. 
Very well, but no one gave you the right to turn 
a man who suffers into a property.” 

‘““ How dare you say that?” Aboguin asked 
quietly. Again his face began to twist about, 
this time in visible anger. 

‘““ How dare you bring me here to listen to 
trivial rubbish, when you know that I’m in 
sorrow ?”’ the doctor cried and banged his fists 
on the table once more. ‘“‘ Who gave you the 
right to jeer at another’s grief?” 

““'You’re mad,” cried Aboguin. ‘“ You’re 
ungenerous. I too am deeply unhappy and 

ODE 

‘““ Unhappy ’—the doctor gave a sneering 

laugh—‘‘ Don’t touch the word, it’s got nothing 


ENEMIES 191 


to do with you. Wasters who can’t get money 
on a bill call themselves unhappy too. <A capon’s 
unhappy, oppressed with all its superfluous fat. 
You worthless lot!” 

“Sir, you’re forgetting yourself,” Aboguin 
gave a piercing scream. ‘ For words like those, 
people are beaten. Do you understand ? ” 

Aboguin thrust his hand into his side pocket, 
took out a pocket-book, found two notes and 
flung them on the table. 

‘“* There’s your fee,” he said, and his nostrils 
trembled. ‘* You’re paid.” 

“You dare not offer me money,” said the 
doctor, and brushed the notes from the table to 
the floor. ‘‘ You don’t settle an insult with 
money.” 

Aboguin and the doctor stood face to face, 
heaping each other with undeserved insults. 
Never in their lives, even in a frenzy, had they 
said so much that was unjust and cruel and 
absurd. In both the selfishness of the unhappy 
is violently manifest. Unhappy men are selfish, 
wicked, unjust, and less able to understand each 
other than fools. Unhappiness does not unite 
people, but separates them; and just where one 
would imagine that people should be united by the 
community of grief, there is more injustice and 
cruelty done than among the comparatively 
contented. 

“‘ Send me home, please,” the doctor cried, out 
of breath. 

Aboguin rang the bell violently. Nobody 


192 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


came. He rang onee more; then flung the bell 
angrily to the floor. It struck dully on the carpet 
and gave out a mournful sound like a death- 
moan. The footman appeared. 

‘“* Where have you been hiding, damn you?” 
The master sprang upon him with clenched fists. 
*“'Where have you been just now? Go away 
and tell them to send the carriage round for this 
gentleman, and get the brougham ready for me. 
Wait,” he called out as the footman turned to go. 
‘“* Not a single traitor remains to-morrow. Pack 
off all of you! I will engage new ones... 
Rabble!” 

While they waited Aboguin and the doctor 
were silent. Already the expression of satis- 
faction and the subtle elegance had returned to 
the former. He paced the drawing-room, shook 
his head elegantly and evidently was planning 
something. His anger was not yet cool, but he 
tried to make as if he did not notice his enemy. 
. . . The doctor stood with one hand on the edge 
of the table, looking at Aboguin with that deep, 
rather cynical, ugly contempt with which only 
grief and an unjust lot can look, when they see 
satiety and elegance before them. 

A little later, when the doctor took his seat in 
the carriage and drove away, his eyes still 
glanced contemptuously. It was dark, much 
darker than an hour ago. The red half-moon 
had now disappeared behind the little hill, and 
the clouds which watched it lay in dark spots 
round the stars. The brougham with the red 


ENEMIES 198 


lamps began to rattle on the road and passed the 
doctor. It was Aboguin on his way to protest, 
to commit all manner of folly. 

All the way the doctor thought not of his wife 
or Andrey, but only of Aboguin and those who 
lived in the house he just left. His thoughts were 
unjust, inhuman, and cruel. He passed sentence 
on Aboguin, his wife, Papchinsky, and all those 
who live in rosy semi-darkness and smell of scent. 
All the way he hated them, and his heart ached 
with his contempt for them. The conviction he 
formed about them would last his life long. 

Time will pass and Kirilov’s sorrow, but this 
conviction, unjust and unworthy of the human 
heart, will not pass, but will remain in the 
doctor’s mind until the grave. 





A TRIFLING OCCURRENCE 


Nicotat Intyich ByYELyAEv, a Petersburg 
landlord, very fond of the racecourse, a well fed, 
pink young man of about thirty-two, once called 
towards evening on Madame Irnin—Olga Ivan- 
ovna—with whom he had a Liaison, or, to use 
his own phrase, spun out a long and tedious 
romance. And indeed the first pages of this 
romance, pages of interest and inspiration, had 
been read long ago; now they dragged on and 
on, and presented neither novelty nor interest. 

Finding that Olga Ivanovna was not at home, 
my hero lay down a moment on the drawing- 
room sofa and began to wait. 

“Good evening, Nicolai Ilyich,” he suddenly 
heard a child’s voice say. ‘“‘ Mother will be in in 
amoment. She’s gone to the dressmaker’s with 
Sonya.” 

In the same drawing-room on the sofa lay 
Olga Vassilievna’s son, Alyosha, a boy about 
eight years old, well built, well looked after, 
dressed up like a picture in a velvet jacket and 
long black stockings. He lay on a satin pillow, 

195 


a 


196 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


and apparently imitating an acrobat whom he 
had lately seen in the circus, lifted up first one 
leg then the other. When his elegant legs 
began to be tired, he moved his hands, or he 
jumped up impetuously and then went on all 
fours, trying to stand with his legs in the air. 
All this he did with a most serious face, breathing 
heavily, as if he himself found no happiness in 
God’s gift of such a restless body. 

‘““Ah, how do you do, my friend?” said 
Byelyaev. “Is it you? I didn’t notice you. 
Is your mother well ? ” 

At the moment Alyosha had just taken hold 
of the toe of his left foot in his right hand and 
got into a most awkward pose. He turned 
head over heels, jumped up, and glanced from 
under the big, fluffy lampshade at Byelyaev. 

“How can I put it?” he said, shrugging his 
shoulders. ‘‘ As a matter of plain fact mother 
is never well. You see she’s a woman, and 
women, Nicolai Ilyich, have always some pain 
or another.” 

For something to do, Byelyaev began to 
examine Alyosha’s face. All the time he had 
been acquainted with Olga Ivanovna he had 
never once turned his attention to the boy and 
had completely ignored his existence. A boy 
is stuck in front of your eyes, but what is he 
doing here, what is his réle ?—-you don’t want to 
give a single thought to the question. 

In the evening dusk Alyosha’s face with a 
pale forehead and steady black eyes unexpectedly 


A TRIFLING OCCURRENCE 197 


reminded Byelyaev of Olga Vassilievna as she 
was in the first pages of the romance. He had 
the desire to be affectionate to the boy. 

““Come here, whipper-snapper,” he said. 
““Come and let me have a good look at you, 
quite close.” 

The boy jumped off the sofa and ran to Bye- 
lyaev. 

“Well?” Nicolai Ilyich began, putting his 
hand on the thin shoulders. ‘ And how are 
things with you?” 

*“* How shall I put it? ... They used to be 
much better before.” 

ee How ? 99 

** Quite simple. Before, Sonya vl I only had 
to do music and reading, and now we’re given 
French verses to learn. You’ve had your hair 
cut lately ? ” 

“Yes, just lately.” 

““That’s why I noticed it. Your beard’s 
shorter. May I touch it... doesn’t it hurt?” 

** No, not a bit.”’ 

“* Why is it that it hurts if you pull one hair, 
and when you pull a whole lot, it doesn’t hurt 
a bit? Ah, ah! You know it’s a pity you 
don’t have side-whiskers. You should shave 
here, and at the sides . . . and leave the hair 
just here.” 

The boy pressed close to Byelyaev and began 
to play with his watch-chain. 

“When I go to the gymnasium,” he said, 
*“* Mother is going to buy me a watch. I'll ask 


198 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


her to buy me a chain just like this. What a 
fine locket! Father has one just the same, but 
yours has stripes, here, and his has got letters... 
Inside it’s mother’s picture. Father has another 
chain now, not in links, but like a ribbon... .” 

‘How do you know? Do you see your 
father ? ”’ 

ge Ws ad. Ce cts 6 Reem Ee 

Alyosha blushed snd in the violent confusion 
of being detected in a lie began to scratch the 
locket busily with his finger-nail. Byelyaev 
looked steadily at his face and asked : 

‘** Do you see your father ? ” 

no (Ue pre 

** But, be honest—on your honour. By your 
face I can see you’re not telling me the truth. 
If you made ‘a slip of the tongue by mistake, 
what’s the use of shuffling. Tell me, do you 
see him? As one friend to another.” 

Alyosha mused. 

** And you won’t tell Mother ?” he asked. 

“* What next.” 

** On your word of honour.” 

““My word of honour.”’ 

“* Swear an oath.” 

‘““ What a nuisance you are! What do you 
take me for?” 

Alyosha iooked round, made big eyes and 
began to whisper. 

“Only for God’s sake don’t tell Mother! 
Never tell it to anyone at all, because it’s a 
secret. God forbid that Mother should ever get 


A TRIFLING OCCURRENCE 199 


to know; then I and Sonya and Pelagueia will 
pay for it... Listen. Sonya and I meet Father 
every Tuesday and Friday. When Pelagueia 
takes us for a walk before dinner, we go into 
Apfel’s sweet-shop and Father’s waiting for us. 
He always sits in a separate room, you know, 
where there’s a splendid marble table and an 
ash-tray shaped like a goose without a back...” 

** And what do you do there ? ” 

** Nothing !—First, we welcome one another, 
then we sit down at a little table and Father 
begins to treat us to coffee and cakes. You 
know, Sonya eats meat-pies, and I can’t bear 
pies with meat in them! I like them made of 
cabbage and eggs. We eat so much that after- 
wards at dinner’we try to eat as much as we 
possibly can so that Mother shan’t notice.” 

** What do you talk about there ? ” 

“To Father? About anything. He kisses 
us and cuddles us, tells us all kinds of funny 
stories. You know, he says that he will take 
us to live with him when we are grown up. 
Sonya doesn’t want to go, but I say ‘ Yes.’ Of 
course, it'll be lonely without Mother; but Ill 
write letters to her. How funny: we could 
go to her for our holidays then—couldn’t we ? 
Besides, Father says that he’ll buy me a horse. 
He’s a splendid man. I can’t understand why 
Mother doesn’t invite him to live with her or 
why she says we mustn’t meet him. He loves 
Mother very much indeed. He’s always asking 
us how she is and what she’s doing. When she 


200 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


was ill, he took hold of his head like this . . . and 
ran, ran, all the time. He is always telling us 
to obey and respect her. Tell me, is it true 
that we’re unlucky ?”’ 

“Him... how?” 

“Father says so. He says: ‘ You are un- 
lucky children.’ It’s quite strange to listen to 
him. He says: ‘You are unhappy, ’m un- 
happy, and Mother’s unhappy.’ He says: 
‘ Pray to God for yourselves and for her.’ ” 

Alyosha’s eyes rested upon the stuffed bird 
and he mused. 

““ Exactly . . .” snorted Byelyaev. ‘* This is 
what you do. You arrange conferences in 
sweet-shops. And your mother doesn’t know ? ” 

*““N—no... How could she know? Pela- 
gueia won’t tell for anything. The day before 
yesterday Father stood us pears. Sweet, like 
jam. I had two.” 

“H’m... well, now... tell me, doesn’t your 
father speak about me?” 

** About you? How shall I put it?” 

Alyosha gave a searching glance to Byelyaev’s 
face and shrugged his shoulders. 

** He doesn’t say anything in particular.” 

** What does he say, for instance ? ” 

** You won’t be offended ? ” 

** What next? Why, does he abuse me?” 

** He doesn’t abuse you, but you know . . . he 
is cross with you.. He says that it’s through you 
that Mother’s unhappy and that you .. . ruined 
Mother. But he is so queer! I explain to him 


29 


A TRIFLING OCCURRENCE 201 


that you are good and never shout at Mother, 
but he only shakes his head.” 

““Does he say those very words: that I 
ruined her? ”’ 

“Yes. Don’t be offended, Nicolai Ilyich!” 

Byelyaev got up, stood still a moment, and 
then began to walk about the drawing- 
room. 

“This is strange, and . . . funny,” he mur- 
mured, shrugging his shoulders and smiling 
ironically. ‘*‘ He is to blame all round, and now 
I’ve ruined her, eh ? What an innocent lamb ! 
Did he say those very words to you: that I 
. Tuined your mother ? ”’ 

“Yes, but . . . you said that you wouldn’t 
‘get offended.” 

**T’m not offended, and .. . and it’s none of 
your business! No, it... it’s quite funny 
though. I fell into the trap, yet I’m to be 
blamed as well.” 

The bell rang. The boy dashed from his place 
and ran out. In a minute a lady entered the 
room with a little girl. It was Olga Ivanovna, 
Alyosha’s mother. After her, hopping, hum- 
ming noisily, and waving his hands, followed 
Alyosha. 

““ Of course, who is there to accuse except 
me ? ” he murmured, sniffing. “ He’s right, he’s 
the injured husband.” 

** 'What’s the matter ? ”’ asked Olga Ivanovna. 

“* What’s the matter! Listen to the kind of 
sermon your dear husband preaches. It appears 

S : 


202 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


I’m a scoundrel and a murderer, I’ve ruined you 
and the children. All of you are unhappy, and 
only I am awfully happy! Awfully, awfully 
happy!” 

**T don’t understand, Nicolai! What is it?” 

“Just listen to this young gentleman,” 
Byelyaev said, pointing to Alyosha. 

Alyosha blushed, then became pale suddenly 
and his whole face was twisted in fright. 

*“ Nicolai Ilyich,’ he whispered loudly. 
oe Shh ! 39 

Olga Ivanovna glanced in surprise at Alyosha, 
at Byelyaev, and then again at Alyosha. 

‘“* Ask him, if you please,”” went on Byelyaev. 
** That stupid fool Pelagueia of yours, takes them 
to sweet-shops and arranges meetings with their 
dear father there. But that’s not the point. 
The point is that the dear father is a martyr, 
and I’m a murderer, I’m a scoundrel, who broke 
the lives of both of you... .” 

** Nicolai Ilyich ! ” moaned st diene “You 
gave your word of honour! ” 

‘*“ Ah, let me alone!” Byelyaev waved his 
hand. ‘This is something more important 
than any words of honour. The hypocrisy 
revolts me, the lie!” 

**T don’t understand,” muttered Olga Ivan- 
ovna, and tears began to glimmer in her eyes. 
“Tell me, Lyolka,’’—she turned to her son, 
** Do you see your father ? ” 

Alyosha did not hear and looked with horror 
at Byelyaev. 


A TRIFLING OCCURRENCE 203 


“It’s impossible,’ said the mother. “Tl 
go and ask Pelagueia.”’ 

Olga Ivanovna went out. 

** But, but you gave me your word of honour,” 
Alyosha said trembling all over. 

Byelyaev waved his hand at him and went 
on walking up and down. He was absorbed in 
his insult, and now, as before, he did not notice 
the presence of the boy. He, a big serious man, 
had nothing to do with boys. And Alyosha 
sat down in a corner and in terror told Sonya 
how he had been deceived. He _ trembled, 
stammered, wept. This was the first time in his 
life that he had been set, roughly, face to face 
with a lie. He had never known before that in 
this world besides sweet pears and cakes and 
expensive watches, there exist many other things 
which have no name in children’s language. 


oO 2 





A GENTLEMAN FRIEND 


WHEN she came out of the hospital the charm- 
ing Vanda, or, according to her passport, “ the 
honourable lady-citizen Nastasya Kanavkina,” 
found herself in a position in which she had 
never been before: without a roof and without 
asou. What was to be done? 

First of all, she went to a pawnshop to pledge 
her turquoise ring, her only jewellery. They 
gave her a rouble for the ring . . . but what 
can you buy for a rouble? For that you can’t 
get a short jacket a la mode, or an elaborate hat, 
or a pair of brown shoes; yet without these 
things she felt naked. She felt as though, not 
only the people, but even the horses and dogs 
were staring at her and laughing at the plain- 
ness of her clothes. And her only thought was 
for her clothes; she did not care at all what she 
ate or where she slept. 

** If only I were to meet a gentleman friend...” 
she thought. “I could get some money... 
Nobody would say ‘ No,’ because . . .” 

But she came across no gentleman friends. 


It’s easy to find them of nights in the Renaissance, 
205 


206 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


but they wouldn’t let her go into the Renaissance 
in that plain dress and without a hat. What’s 
- to be done? After a long time of anguish, 
vexed and weary with walking, sitting, and 
thinking, Vanda made up her mind to play her 
last card: to go straight to the rooms of some 
gentleman friend and ask him for money. 

** But who shall I go to?” she pondered. “I 
can’t possibly go to Misha . . . he’s got a family 
... The ginger-headed old man is at his 
DICE... 

Vanda recollected Finkel, the dentist, the 
converted Jew, who gave her a bracelet three 
months ago. Once she poured a glass of beer 
on his head at the German club. She was 
awfully glad that she had thought of Finkel. 

““ He'll be certain to give me some, if only I 
find him in. . .” she thought, on her way to 
him. “ And if he won’t, then I'll break every 
single thing there.” 

She had her plan already prepared. She 
approached the dentist’s door. She would run 
up the stairs, with a laugh, fly into his private 
room and ask for twenty-five roubles... But 
when she took hold of the bell-pull, the plan 
went clean out of her head. Vanda suddenly 
degan to be afraid and agitated, a thing which 
had never happened to her before. She was 
never anything but bold and independent in 
drunken company ; but now, dressed in common 
clothes, and just like any ordinary person begging 
a favour, she felt timid and humble. 


A GENTLEMAN FRIEND 207 


“Perhaps he has forgotten me...” she 
thought, not daring to pull the bell. ‘ And 
how can I go up to him in a dress like this ? 
As if I were a pauper, or a dowdy respectable. . .” 

She rang the bell irresolutely. 

There were steps behind the door. It was the - 
porter. 

“Is the doctor at home?” she asked. 

She would have been very pleased now if the 
porter had said “‘ No,” but instead of answering 
he showed her into the hall, and took her jacket. 
The stairs seemed to her luxurious and magni- 
ficent, but what she noticed first of all in all the 
luxury was a large mirror in which she saw a 
ragged creature without an elaborate hat, with- 
out a modish jacket, and without a pair of brown 
shoes. And Vanda found it strange that, now 
that she was poorly dressed and looking more 
like a seamstress or a washerwoman, for the 
first time she felt ashamed, and had no more 
assurance or boldness left. In her thoughts she 
began to call herself Nastya Kanavkina, instead 
of Vanda as she used. 

“This way, please!” said the maid-servant, 
leading her to the private room. “ The doctor 
will be here immediately . . . Please, take a seat.” 

Vanda dropped into an easy chair. 

“T’ll say: ‘Lend me...’” she thought. 
“That’s the right thing, because we are ac- 
quainted. But the maid must go out of the 
room . . . It’s awkward in front of the maid . .. 
What is she standing there for ? ” 


208 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


In five minutes the door opened and Finkel 
entered—a tall, swarthy, convert Jew, with fat 
cheeks and goggle-eyes. His cheeks, eyes, belly, 
fleshy hips—were all so full, repulsive, and 
coarse! At the Renaissance and the German 
club he used always to be a little drunk, to 
spend a lot of money on women, patiently put 
up with all their tricks—for instance, when 
Vanda poured the beer on his head, he only 
smiled and shook his finger at her—but now he 
looked dull and sleepy; he had the pompous, 
chilly expression of a superior, and he was 
chewing something. 

‘* What is the matter?” he asked, without 
looking at Vanda. Vanda glanced at the maid’s 
serious face, at the blown-out figure of Finkel, 
who obviously did not recognise her, and she 
blushed. 

‘“* What’s the matter ?”’ the dentist repeated, 
irritated. 

“To... oth ache...” whispered Vanda. 

‘““ Ah... which tooth... where?” 

Vanda remembered she had a tooth with a 
hole. 

** At the bottom . . . to the right,” she said. 

“H’m... open your mouth.” 

Finkel frowned, held his breath, and began 
to work the aching tooth loose. 

“Do you feel any pain?” he asked, picking 
at her tooth with some instrument. 

“Yes, I do...” Vanda lied. ‘“‘ Shall I re- 
mind him?” she thought, “he'll be sure to 


A GENTLEMAN FRIEND 209 


remember... But... the maid... what is she 
standing there for?” 

Finkel suddenly snorted like a steam-engine, 
straight into her mouth, and said : 

“IT don’t advise you to have a stopping... 
Anyhow the tooth is quite useless.” 

Again he picked at the tooth for a little, and 
soiled Vanda’s lips and gums with his tobacco- 
stained fingers. Again he held his breath and 
dived into her mouth with something cold... 

Vanda suddenly felt a terrible pain, shrieked 
and seized Finkel’s hand... 

‘“* Never mind . . .” he murmured. ‘“ Don’t 
be frightened . . . This tooth isn’t any use.” 

And his tobacco-stained fingers, covered with 
blood, held up the extracted tooth before her 
eyes. The maid came forward and put a bowl 
to her lips. 

‘* Rinse your mouth with cold water at home,” 
said Finkel. ‘* That will make the blood stop.” 

He stood before her in the attitude of a man 
impatient to be left alone at last. 

‘“* Good-bye .. .”’ she said, turning to the door. 

*“H’m! And who’s to pay me for the work ?” 
Finkel asked laughingly. 

“Ah... yes!” Vanda recollected, blushed 
and gave the dentist the rouble she had got for 
the turquoise ring. 

When she came into the street she felt still 
more ashamed than before, but she was not 
ashamed of her poverty any more. Nor did 
she notice any more that she hadn’t an elaborate 


210 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


hat or a modish jacket. She walked along the 
street spitting blood and each red spittle told 
her about her life, a bad, hard life; about the 
insults she had suffered and had still to suffer— 
to-morrow, a week, a year hence—her whole 
life, till death... 

‘“Oh, how terrible it is!” she whispered. 
“My God, how terrible! ” 

But the next day she was at the Renaissance 
and she danced there. She wore a new, immense 
red hat, a new jacket a la mode and a pair of 
brown shoes. She was treated to supper by a 
young merchant from Kazan. 


OVERWHELMING 
SENSATIONS 


Tuis happened not so very long ago in the 
Moscow Circuit Court. The jurymen, left in 
court for the night, before going to bed, began 
a conversation about overwhelming sensations. 
It was occasioned by someone’s recollection of 
a witness who became a stammerer and turned 
grey, owing, as he said, to one dreadful moment. 
The jurymen decided before going to bed that 
each one of them should dig into his memories 
and tell a story. Life is short; but still there 
is not a single man who can boast that he had 
not had some dreadful moments in his past. 

One juryman related how he was nearly 
drowned. A second told how one night he 
poisoned his own child, in a place where there 
was neither doctor nor chemist, by giving the 
child white copperas in mistake for soda. The 
child did not die, but the father nearly went mad. 
A third, not an old man, but sickly, described 


his two attempts to commit suicide. Once he 
211 


212 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


shot himself; the second time he threw himself 
in front of a train. 

The fourth, a short, stout man, smartly 
dressed, told the following story: 

*““T was no more than twenty-two or twenty- 
three years old, when I fell head over heels in 
love with my present wife and proposed to her. 
Now, I would gladly give myself a thrashing for 
that early marriage; but then—well, I don’t 
know what would have happened to me if 
Natasha had refused. My love was most ardent, 
the kind described in novels as mad, passionate, 
and so on. My happiness choked me, and I did 
not know how to escape from it. I bored my 
father, my friends, the servants by continually 
telling them how desperately I was in love. 
Happy people are quite the most tiresome and 
boring. I used to be awfully exasperating. 
Even now I’m ashamed. 

** At the time I had a newly-called barrister 
among my friends. The barrister is now known 
all over Russia, but then he was only at the begin- 
ning of his popularity, and he was not rich or 
famous enough to have the right not to recognise 
a friend when he met him or not to raise his 
hat. I used to go and see him once or twice a 
week. 

‘«¢ When I came, we used both to stretch our- 
selves upon the sofas and begin to philosophise. 

** Once I lay on the sofa, harping on the theme 
that there is no more ungrateful profession than 
a barrister’s. I tried to show that after the 


OVERWHELMING SENSATIONS 213 


witnesses have been heard the Court can easily 
dispense with the Crown Prosecutor and the 
barrister, because they are equally unnecessary 
and only hindrances. If an adult juryman, 
sound in spirit and mind, is convinced that this 
ceiling is white, or that Ivanov is guilty, no 
Demosthenes has the power to fight and over- 
come his conviction. Who can convince me 
that my moustache is carroty when I know it 
is black ? When I listen to an orator I may 
perhaps get sentimental and even shed a tear, 
but my rooted convictions, for the most part 
based on the obvious and on facts, will not be 
changed an atom. My friend the barrister con- 
tended that I was still young and silly and was 
talking childish nonsense. In his opinion an 
obvious fact when illumined by conscientious 
experts became still more obvious. That was 
his first point. His second was that a talent is 
a force, an elemental power, a hurricane, that is 
able to turn even stones to dust, not to speak 
of such trifles as the convictions of householders 
and small shopkeepers. It is as hard for human 
frailty to struggle against a talent as it is to 
look at the sun without being blinded or to stop 
the wind. By the power of the word one single 
mortal converts thousands of convinced savages 
to Christianity. Ulysses was the most convinced 
person in the world, but he was all submission 
before the Syrens, and so on. All history is 
made up of such instances. In life we meet 
them at every turn. And so it ought to be; 


214 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


otherwise a clever person of talent would not 
be preferred before the stupid and untalented. 

“IT persisted and continued to argue that a 
conviction is stronger than any talent, though, 
speaking frankly, I myself could not define what 
exactly is a conviction and what is a talent. 
Probably I talked only for the sake of talking. 

““* Take even your own case’... said the 
barrister. ‘ You are convinced that your fiancée 
is an angel and that there’s not a man in all the 
town happier than you. I tell you, ten or 
twenty minutes would be quite enough for me 
to make you sit down at this very table and write 
to break off the engagement.’ 

“IT began to laugh. 

““* Don’t laugh. I’m talking seriously,’ said 
my friend. ‘If I only had the desire, in twenty 
minutes you would be happy in the thought that 
you have been saved from marriage. My talent 
is not great, but neither are you strong ?’ 

“* * Well, try, please,’ I said. 

““* No, why should I? I only said it in 
passing. You’re a good boy. It would be a 
pity to expose you to such an experiment. 
Besides, I’m not in the mood, to-day.’ 

“We sat down to supper. The wine and 
thoughts of Natasha and my love utterly filled 
me with a sense of youth and happiness. My 
happiness was so infinitely great that the green- 
eyed barrister opposite me seemed so unhappy, 
so little, so grey!” 

“** But do try,’ I pressed him. ‘I beg you.’ 


yh, 
Jee 


OVERWHELMING SENSATIONS 215 


“The barrister shook his head and knit his 
brows. Evidently I had begun to bore him. 

*** I know,’ he said, ‘ that when the experi- 
ment is over you will thank me and call me 
saviour, but one must think of your sweetheart 
too. She loves you, and your refusal would 
make her suffer. But what a beauty she is! 
I envy you.’ 

“The barrister sighed, swallowed some wine, 
and began to speak of what a wonderful creature 
my Natasha was. He had an uncommon gift 
for description. He could pour out a whole 
heap of words about a woman’s eyelashes or 
her little finger. I listened to him with 
delight. 

“*Tve seen many women in my life-time,’ 
he said,‘ but I give you my word of honour, I 
tell you as a friend, your Natasha Andreevna is a 
gem, a rare girl! Of course, there are defects, 
even a good many, I grant you, but still she is 
charming.’ 

“And the barrister began to speak of the 
defects of my sweetheart. Now I quite under- 
stand it was a general conversation about women, 
one about their weak points in general; but it 
appeared to me then as though he was speaking 
only of Natasha. He went into raptures about 
her snub-nose, her excited voice, her shrill 
laugh, her affectation—indeed, about everything 
I particularly disliked in her. All this was in his 
opinion infinitely amiable, gracious and feminine. 
Imperceptibly he changed from enthusiasm first 


216 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


to paternal edification, then to a light, sneering 
tone. . . . There was no Chairman of the Bench 
with us to stop the barrister riding the high horse. 
I hadn’t a chance of opening my mouth—and 
what could I have said? My friend said nothing 
new, his truths were long familiar. The poison 
was not at all in what he said, but altogether in 
the devilish form in which he said it. A form of 
Satan’s own invention! As I listened to him 
I was convinced that one and the same word had 
a thousand meanings and nuances according to 
the way it is pronounced and the turn given to 
the sentence. I certainly cannot reproduce the 
tone or the form. I can only say that as I 
listened to my friend and paced from corner to 
corner of my room, I was revolted, exasperated, 
contemptuous according as he felt. I even 
believed him when, with tears in his eyes, he 
declared to me that I was a great man, deserving 
a better fate, and destined in the future to » 
accomplish some remarkable exploit, from which 
I might be prevented by my marriage. 

““*My dear friend,’ he exclaimed, firmly 
grasping my hand, ‘I implore you, I command 
you: stop before it is too late. Stop! God 
save you from this strange and terrible mistake ! 
My friend, don’t ruin your youth.’ 

“* Believe me or not as you will, but finally I 
sat down at the table and wrote to my sweet- 
heart breaking off the engagement. I wrote and 
rejoiced that there was still time to repair my 
mistake. When the envelope was sealed I 


OVERWHELMING SENSATIONS 217 


hurried into the street to put it in a pillar box. 
The barrister came with me. 

*** Splendid! Superb!’ he praised me when 
my letter to Natasha disappeared into the dark- 
ness of the pillar-box. ‘I congratulate you with 
all my heart. I’m delighted for your sake.’ 

*“* After we had gone about ten steps together, 
the barrister continued : 

*** Of course, marriage has its bright side too. 
I, for instance, belong to the kind of men for 
whom marriage and family life are everything.’ 

“He was already describing his life: all the 
ugliness of a lonely bachelor existence appeared 
before me. 

‘“* He spoke with enthusiasm of his future wife, 
of the pleasures of an ordinary family life, and 
his transports were so beautiful and sincere that 
I was in absolute despair by the time we reached 
his door. 

** * What are you doing with me, you damnable 
man?’ I said panting. ‘ You’ve ruined me! 
Why did you make me write that cursed letter ? 
I love her! I love her!’ 

““ And I swore that I was in love. I was 
terrified of my action. It already seemed wild 
and absurd to me. Gentlemen, it is quite im- 
possible to imagine a more overwhelming sensa- 
tion than mine at that moment! Ifa kind man 
had happened to slip a revolver into my hand I 
would have put a bullet through my head gladly. 

** * Well, that’s enough, enough ! ’ the advocate 
said, patting my shoulder and beginning to 

© 


218 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


laugh. ‘Stop crying! The letter won’t reach 
your sweetheart. It was I, not you, wrote the 
address on the envelope, and I muddled it up 
so that they won’t be able to make anything of it 
at the post-office. But let this be a lesson to 
you. Don’t discuss things you don’t under- 
stand.’ ”’ 

** Now, gentlemen, next, please.” 

The fifth juryman had settled himself com- 
fortably and already opened his mouth to begin 
his story, when we heard the clock striking from 
Spaisky Church-tower. 

“Twelve ...’ one of the jurymen counted. 
“To which class, gentlemen, would you assign 
the sensations which our prisoner at the bar is 
now feeling? The murderer passes the night 
here in a prisoner’s cell, either lying or sitting, 
certainly without sleeping and all through the 
sleepless night listens to the striking of the hours. 
What does he think of ? What dreams visit 
him ? ” 

And all the jurymen suddenly forgot about 
overwhelming sensations. The experience of 
their friend, who once wrote the letter to his 
Natasha, seemed unimportant, and not even 
amusing. Nobody told any more stories; but 
they began to go to bed quietly, in silence. 


EXPENSIVE LESSONS 


Ir is a great bore for an educated person not 
to know foreign languages. Vorotov felt it 
strongly, when on leaving the university after 
he had got his degree he occupied himself with 
a little scientific research. 

“It’s awful!” he used to say, losing his 
breath (for although only twenty-six he was 
stout, heavy, and short of breath). “ It’s awful. 
Without knowing languages I’m like a bird with- 
out wings. Ill simply have to chuck the work.” 

So he decided, come what might, to conquer 
his natural laziness and to study French and 
German, and he began to look out for a teacher. 

One winter afternoon, as Vorotov sat working 
in his study, the servant announced a lady to 
see him. 

‘* Show her in,”’ said Vorotov. 

And a young lady, exquisitely dressed in the 
latest fashion, entered the study. She intro- 
duced herself as Alice Ossipovna Enquette, a 
teacher of French, and said that a friend of 
Vorotov’s had sent her to him. 

“Very glad! Sit down!” said Vorotov, 

219 Pp 2 


? 


220 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


losing his breath, and clutching at the collar of 
his night shirt. (He always worked in a night 
shirt in order to breathe more easily.) ‘‘ You 
were sent to me by Peter Sergueyevich? Yes 
o> ves... .Dasked him... Very glad!” 

While he discussed the matter with Mademoi- 
selle Enquette he glanced at her shyly, with 
curiosity. She was a genuine Frenchwoman, 
very elegant, and still quite young. From her 
pale and languid face, from her short, curly 
hair and unnaturally small waist, you would 
not think her more than eighteen, but looking 
at her broad, well-developed shoulders, her 
charming back and severe eyes, Vorotov decided 
that she was certainly not less than twenty-three, 
perhaps even twenty-five; but then again it 
seemed to him that she was only eighteen. Her 
face had the cold, business-like expression of 
one who had come to discuss a business matter. 
Never once did she smile or frown, and only 
once a look of perplexity flashed into her eyes, 
when she discovered that she was not asked to 
teach children but a grown up, stout young man. 

** So, Alice Ossipovna,’’ Vorotov said to her, 
** you will give me a lesson daily from seven to 
eight o’clock in the evening. With regard to 
your wish to receive a rouble a lesson, I have no 
objection at all. A rouble—well, let it be a 
POUNCE. 5. 5" 

And he went on asking her if she wanted tea 
or coffee, if the weather was fine, and, smiling 
good naturedly, stroking the tablecloth with 


EXPENSIVE LESSONS 221 


the palm of his hand, he asked her kindly who 
she was, where she had completed her education, 
and how she earned her living. 

In a cold, business-like tone Alice Ossipovna 
answered that she had completed her education 
at a private school, and had then qualified as a 
domestic teacher, that her father had died recently 
of scarlet fever, her mother was alive and made 
artificial flowers, that she, Mademoiselle Enquette, 
gave private lessons at a pension in the morning, 
and from one o’clock right until the evening she 
taught in respectable private houses. 

She went, leaving a slight and almost imper- 
ceptible perfume of a woman’s dress behind her. 
Vorotoyv did not work for a long time afterwards 
but sat at the table stroking the green cloth and 
thinking. 

“It’s very pleasant to see girls earning their 
own living,” he thought. ‘‘ On the other hand 
it is very unpleasant to realise that poverty 
does not spare even such elegant and pretty 
girls as Alice Ossipovna; she, too, must struggle 
for her existence. Rotten luck! .. .” 

Having never seen virtuous Frenchwomen he 
also thought that this exquisitely dressed Alice 
Ossipovna, with her well-developed shoulders 
and unnaturally small waist was in all proba- 
bility, engaged in something else besides teaching. 

Next evening when the clock pointed to five 
minutes to seven, Alice Ossipovna arrived, rosy 
from the cold ; she opened Margot (an elementary 
text-book) and began without any preamble: 


222 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


** The French grammar has twenty-six letters. 
The first is called A, the second B.. .” 

** Pardon,” interrupted Vorotov, smiling, “I 
must warn you, Mademoiselle, that you will 
have to change your methods somewhat in my 
case. The fact is that I know Russian, Latin 
and Greek very well. I have studied compara- 
tive philology, and it seems to me that we may 
leave out Margot and begin straight off to read 
some author.” And he explained to the 
Frenchwoman how grown-up people study 
languages. 

‘* A friend of mine,”’ said he, ‘‘ who wished to 
know modern languages put a French, German 
and Latin gospel in front of him and then 
minutely analysed one word after another. The 
result—he achieved his purpose in less than a 
year. Let us take some author and _ start 
reading.” 

The Frenchwoman gave him a puzzled look. 
It was evident that Vorotov’s proposal appeared 
to her naive and absurd. If he had not been 
grown up she would certainly have got angry and 
stormed at him, but as he was a very stout, 
adult man at whom she could not storm, she 
only shrugged her shoulders half-perceptibly 
and said : 

** Just as you please.” 

Vorotov ransacked his bookshelves and pro- 
duced a ragged French book. 

** Will this do?” he asked. 

* It’s all the same.” 


EXPENSIVE LESSONS 2238 


“* In that case let us begin. Let us start from 
the title, Mémoires.” 

** Reminiscences . . . 
selle Enquette. 

** Reminiscences . . .”” repeated Vorotov. 

Smiling good naturedly and breathing heavily, 
he passed a quarter of an hour over the word 
mémoires and the same with the word de. This 
tired Alice Ossipovna out. She answered his 
questions carelessly, got confused and evidently 
neither understood her pupil nor tried to. 
Vorotov asked her questions, and at the same 
time glanced furtively at her fair hair, thinking : 

‘“‘ The hair is not naturally curly. She waves 
it. Marvellous! She works from morning till 
night and yet she finds time to wave her hair.” 

At eight o’clock sharp she got up, gave him a 
dry, cold “‘ Au revoir, Monsieur,” and left the 
study. After her lingered the same _ sweet, 
subtle, agitating perfume. The pupil again did 
nothing for a long time, but sat by the table 
and thought. 

During the following days he became con- 
vinced that his teacher was a charming girl 
serious and punctual, but very uneducated and 
incapable of teaching grown up people; so he 
decided he would not waste his time, but part 
with her and engage someone else. When she 
came for the seventh lesson he took an envelope 
containing seven roubles out of his pocket. 
Holding it in his hands and blushing furiously, 
he began : 


3° 


translated Mademoi- 


224 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


*“T am sorry, Alice Ossipovna, but I must 
tell you....I am placed in an awkward 
position. .. .” 

The Frenchwoman glanced at the envelope 
and guessed what was the matter. For the first 
time during the lessons a shiver passed over her 
face and the cold, business-like expression dis- 
appeared. She reddened faintly, and casting 
her eyes down, began to play absently with her 
thin gold chain. And Vorotov, noticing her 
confusion, understood how precious this rouble 
was to her, how hard it would be for her to lose 
this money. 

‘**T must tell you,” he murmured, getting still 
more confused. His heart gave a thump. 
Quickly he put the envelope back into his pocket 
and continued : 

‘“* Excuse me. I... I will leave you for ten 
paces 

And as though he did not want to dismiss 
her at all, but had only asked permission to retire 
for a moment he went into another room and 
sat there for ten minutes. Then he returned, 
more confused than ever; he thought that his 
_Jeaving her like that would be explained by her 
in a certain way and this made him awkward. 

The lessons began again. 

Vorotov wanted them no more. Knowing 
that they would lead to nothing he gave the 
Frenchwoman a free hand; he did not question 
or interrupt her any more. She translated at 
her own sweet will, ten pages a lesson, but he 


EXPENSIVE LESSONS 225 


did not listen. He breathed heavily and for 
want of occupation gazed now and then at her 
curly little head, her neck, her soft white hands, 
and inhaled the perfume of her dress. 

He caught himself thinking about her as he 
ought not and it shamed him, or admiring her, 
and then he felt aggrieved and angry beeause she 
behaved so coldly towards him, in such a business- 
like way, never smiling and as if afraid that he 
might suddenly touch her. All the while he 
thought: How could he inspire. her with 
confidence in him, how could he get to know her 
better, to help her, to make her realise how 
badly she taught, poor little soul ? 

Once Alice Ossipovna came to the lesson in a 
dainty pink dress, a little décolleté, and such a 
sweet scent came from her that you might have 
thought she was wrapped in a cloud, that you 
had only to blow on her for her to fly away or 
dissolve like smoke. She apologised, saying she 
could only stay for half an hour, because she had 
to go straight from the lesson to a ball. 

He gazed at her neck, at her bare shoulders 
and he thought he understood why Frenchwomen 
were known to be light-minded and easily won ; 
he was drowned in this cloud of scent, beauty, 
and nudity, and she, quite unaware of his 
thoughts and probably not in the least interested 
in them, read over the pages quickly and trans- 
lated full steam ahead : 

‘“He walked over the street and met the 
gentleman of his friend and said: where do you 


226 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


rush? seeing your face so pale it makes me 
pain.” 

The Mémoires had been finished long ago; 
Alice was now translating another book. Once 
she came to the lesson an hour earlier, apolo- 
gising because she had to go to the Little Theatre 
at seven o’clock. When the lesson was over 
Vorotov dressed and he too went to the theatre. 
It seemed to him only for the sake of rest and 
distraction, and he did not even think of Alice. 
He would not admit that a serious man, preparing 
for a scientific career, a stay-at-home, should 
brush aside his book and rush to the theatre 
for the sake of meeting an unintellectual, stupid 
girl whom he hardly knew. 

But somehow, during the intervals his heart 
beat, and, without noticing it, he ran about the 
foyer and the corridors like a boy, looking im- 
patiently for someone. Every time the interval 
was over he was tired, but when he discovered 
the familiar pink dress and the lovely shoulders 
veiled with tulle his heart jumped as if from a 
presentiment of happiness, he smiled joyfully, 
and for the first time in his life he felt jealous. 

Alice was with two ugly students and an 
officer. She was laughing, talking loudly and 
evidently flirting. Vorotov had never seen her 
like that. Apparently she was happy, contented, 
natural, warm. Why? What was the reason ? 
Perhaps because these people were dear to her 
and belonged to the same class as she. Vorotov 
felt the huge abyss between him and that class. 


EXPENSIVE LESSONS 227 


He bowed to his teacher, but she nodded coldly 
and quietly passed by. It was plain she did 
not want her cavaliers to know that she had 
pupils and gave lessons because she was poor. 

After the meeting at the theatre Vorotov 
knew that he was in love. During lessons that 
followed he devoured his elegant teacher with 
his eyes, and no longer struggling, he gave full 
rein to his pure and impure thoughts. Alice’s 
face was always cold. Exactly at eight o’clock 
every evening she said calmly, “ Au _ revoir, 
Monsieur,”’ and he felt that she was indifferent 
to him and would remain indifferent, that—his 
position was hopeless. 

Sometimes in the middle of a lesson he would 
begin dreaming, hoping, building plans; he 
composed an amorous declaration, remembering 
that Frenchwomen were frivolous and com- 
plaisant, but he had only to give his teacher one 
glance for his thoughts to be blown out like a 
candle, when you carry it on to the verandah of 
a bungalow and the wind is blowing. Once, 
overcome, forgetting everything, in a frenzy, he 
could stand it no longer. He barred her way 
when she came from the study into the hall 
after the lesson and, losing his breath and 
stammering, began to declare his love: 

‘You are dear to me!...I love you. 
Please let me speak!” 

Alice grew pale: probably she was. afraid 
that after this declaration she would not be able 
to come to him any more and receive a rouble 


228 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


a lesson. She looked at him with terrified eyes 
and began in a loud whisper : 

** Ah, it’s impossible! Do not speak, I beg 
you! Impossible! ” 

Afterwards Vorotov did not sleep all night ; 
he tortured himself with shame, abused him- 
self, thinking feverishly. He thought that his 
declaration had offended the girl and that she 
would not come any more. He made up his 
mind to find out where she lived from the 
Address Bureau and to write her an apology. 
But Alice came without the letter. For a 
moment she felt awkward, and then opened the 
book and began to translate quickly, in an 
animated voice, as always: 

““* Oh, young gentleman, do not rend these 
flowers in my garden which I want to give to 
my sick daughter.’ ” 

She still goes. Four books have been trans- 
lated by now but Vorotov knows nothing 
beyond the word mémoires, and when he is 
asked about his scientific research work he waves 
his hand, leaves the question unanswered, and 
begins to talk about the weather. 








a eee es TN Se ee ee as 


A LIVING CALENDAR 


STATE-COUNCILLOR SHARAMYKIN’S drawing- 
room is wrapped in a pleasant half-darkness. 
The big bronze lamp with the green shade, makes 
the walls, the furniture, the faces, all green, 
couleur “‘ Nuit dUkraine.” Occasionally a 
smouldering log flares up in the dying fire and 
for a moment casts a red glow over the faces ;. 
but this does not spoil the general harmony of 
light. The general tone, as the painters say, 
is well sustained. 

Sharamykin sits in a chair in front of the fire- 
place, in the attitude of a man who has just 
dined. He is an elderly man with a high official’s 
grey side whiskers and meek blue eyes. Tender- 
ness is shed over his face, and his lips are set in a 
~ melancholy smile. At his feet, stretched out 
lazily, with his legs towards the fire-place, Vice- 
Governor Lopniev sits on a little stool. Heis a 
brave-looking man of about forty. Sharamy- 
kin’s children are moving about round the 
piano; Nina, Kolya, Nadya, and Vanya. The 
door leading to Madame Sharamykin’s room is 

229 


230 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


slightly open and the light breaks through 
timidly. There behind the door sits Sharamy- 
kin’s wife, Anna Pavlovna, in front of her 
writing-table. She is president of the local 
ladies’ committee, a lively, piquant lady of 
thirty years and a little bit over. Through her 
pince-nez her vivacious black eyes are running 
over the pages of a French novel. Beneath the 
novel lies a tattered copy of the report of the 
committee for last year. 

“* Formerly our town was much better off in 
these things,” says Sharamykin, screwing up his 
meek eyes at the glowing coals. ‘* Never a 
winter passed but some star would pay us a 
visit. Famous actors and singers used to 
come . . . but now, besides acrobats and organ- 
grinders, the devil only knows what comes. 
There’s no sesthetic pleasure at all. ... We 
might be living in a forest. Yes. . . . And does 
your Excellency remember that Italian tragedian? 
. . . What’s his name? ... He was so dark, 


and tall. ... Let me think....Oh; yes! 
Luigi Ernesto di Ruggiero. . . . Remarkable 
talent. ... And strength. He had only to 


say one word and the whole theatre was on the 
gui vive. My darling Anna used to take a great 
interest in his talent. She hired the theatre for 
him and sold tickets for the performances in 
advance. . . . In return he taught her elocution 
and gesture. A first-rate fellow! He came 
here . . . to be quite exact . . . twelve years 
ago. ... No, that’s not true. ... Less, ten 








A LIVING CALENDAR 231 


years. .. . Anna dear, how old is our Nina?” 

“She'll be ten next birthday,” calls Anna 
Pavlovna from her room. ‘“ Why ?”’ 

‘“* Nothing in particular, my dear. I was just 
curious. . . . And good singers used to come. 
Do you remember Prilipchin, the tenore di 
grazia? Whatacharming fellow he was! How 
good looking! Fair ... avery expressive face, 
Parisian manners. . . . And what a voice, your 
Excellency! Only one weakness: he would 
sing some notes with his stomach and would 
take re falsetto—otherwise everything was good. 
Tamberlik, he said, had taught him. ... My 
dear Anna and I hired a hall for him at the Social 
Club, and in gratitude for that he used to sing 
to us for whole days and nights. . . . He taught 
dear Anna to sing. He came—I remember it as 
though it were last night—in Lent, some twelve 
years ago. No, it’s more. ... How bad my 
memory is getting, Heaven help me! Anna 
dear, how old is our darling Nadya ? 

*““ Twelve.” 

“Twelve ... then we've got to add ten 
months. . . . That makesit exact . . . thirteen. ' 
Somehow there used to be more life in our town 
then. . . . Take, for instance, the charity soirées. 
What enjoyable soirées we used to have before ! 
How elegant! There were singing, playing, 
and recitation. . . . After the war, I remember, 
when the Turkish prisoners were here, dear Anna 
arranged a soirée on behalf of the wounded. We 
collected eleven hundred roubles. I remember 


232 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


the Turkish officers were passionately fond of 
dear Anna’s voice, and kissed her hand in- 
cessantly. He-he! Asiatics, but a grateful 
nation. Would you believe me, the soirée was 
such a success that I wrote an account of it in 
my diary? It was,—I remember it as though 
it had only just happened,—in °76, ... no, 
in °77. ... No! Pray, when were the Turks 
here? Anna dear, how old is our little Kolya ? ” 

‘““T’m seven, Papa!” says Kolya, a brat with 
a swarthy face and coal black hair. 

“Yes, we’re old, and we’ve lost the energy 
we used to have,’”’ Lopniev agreed with a sigh. 
‘“‘'That’s the real cause. Old age, my friend. 
No new moving spirits arrive, and the old ones 
grow old. . . . The old fire is dull now. When 
I was younger I did not like company to be 
bored. . . . I was your Anna Pavlovna’s first 
assistant. Whether it was a charity soirée or a 
tombola to support a star who was going to 
arrive, whatever Anna Pavlovna was arranging, 
I used to throw over everything and begin to 
bustle about. One winter, I remember, I 
bustled and ran so much that I even got 
il. ...I1 shan’t forget that winter. ... Do 
you remember what a performance we arranged 
with Anna Pavlovna in aid of the victims of the 
fire?” 

** What year was it ?”’ 

‘** Not so very long ago. ...In 779. No, in 
’80, I believe! Tell me how old is your Vanya ? ” 

“* Five,”” Anna Pavlovna calls from the study. 


A LIVING CALENDAR 233 


‘* Well, that means it was six years ago. Yes, 
my dear friend, that was a time. It’s all over 
now. The old fire’s quite gone.” 

Lopniev and Sharamykin grew thoughtful. 
The smouldering log flares up for the last time, 
and then is covered in ash. 





OLD AGE 


STaTE-CouNCILLOR USIELKOv, architect, ar- 
rived in his native town, where he had been 
summoned to restore the cemetery church. He 
was born in the town, he had grown up and been 
married there, and yet when he got out of the 
train he hardly recognised it. Everything was 
changed. For instance, eighteen years ago, 
when he left the town to settle in Petersburg, 
where the railway station is now boys used to 
hunt for marmots: now as you come into the 
High Street there is a four storied “ Hotel 
Vienna,” with apartments, where there was of 
old an ugly grey fence. But not the fence or 
the houses, or anything had changed so much 
as the people. Questioning the _hall-porter, 
Usielkov discovered that more than half of the 
people he remembered were dead or paupers or 
forgotten. 

‘** Do you remember Usielkov ?” he asked the 
porter. ‘* Usielkov, the architect, who divorced 
his wife. ... He had a house in Sviribev Street. 
. . . Surely you remember.” 

“* No, I don’t remember anyone of the name.” 

235 Q 2 


236 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


“Why, it’s impossible not to remember. It 
was an exciting case. All the cabmen knew, 
even. Try to remember. His divorce was 
managed by the attorney, Shapkin, the swindler 
. . . the notorious sharper, the man who was 
thrashed at the club. . . .” 

“You mean Ivan Nicolaich ? ” 

* Yes. ... Is he alive? dead?” 

“Thank heaven, his honour’s alive. His 
honour’s a notary now, with an office. Well-to- 
do. Two houses in Kirpichny Street. Just 
lately married his daughter off.” 

Usielkov strode from one corner of the room 
to another. An idea flashed into his mind. 
From boredom, he decided to see Shapkin. It 
was afternoon when he left the hotel and quietly 
walked to Kirpichny Street. He found Shapkin 
in his office and hardly recognised him. From 
the well-built, alert attorney with a quick, im- 
pudent, perpetually tipsy expression, Shapkin 
had become a modest, grey-haired, shrunken 
old man. 

“You don’t recognise me . . . You have for- 
gotten...” Usielkov began. “I’m your old 
client, Usielkov.”’ 

““ Usielkov ? Which Usielkov? Ah!” 

Remembrance came to Shapkin: he recog- 
nised him and was confused. Began exclama- 
tions, questions, recollections. 

““ Never expected ... never thought...” 
chuckled Shapkin. ‘“‘ What will you have? 
Would you like champagne? Perhaps you'd 


OLD AGE 237 


like oysters. My dear man, what a lot of money 
I got out of you in the old days—so much that 
I can’t think what I ought to stand you.” 

‘* Please don’t trouble,” said Usielkov. “I 
haven’t time. I must go to the cemetery and 
examine the church. I have a commission.” 

‘“* Splendid. We'll have something to eat and 
a drink and go together. I’ve got some splendid 
horses! I'll take you there and introduce you 
to the churchwarden. . . . I'll fix up everything. 
. . . But what’s the matter, my dearest man? 
You’re not avoiding me, not afraid? Please 
sit nearer. There’s nothing to be afraid of now. 
. . . Long ago, I really was pretty sharp, a bit 
of a rogue .. . but now I’m quieter than water, 
humbler than grass. D’ve grown old; got a 
family. There are children. . . . Time to die!” 

The friends had something to eat and 
drink, and went in a coach and pair to the 
cemetery. : 

“Yes, it was a good time,” Shapkin was 
reminiscent, sitting in the sledge. “‘ I remember, 
but I simply can’t believe it. Do you remember 
how you divorced your wife? It’s almost twenty 
years ago, and you’ve probably forgotten every- 
thing, but I remember it as though I conducted 
the petition yesterday. My God, how rotten I 
was! Then I was a smart, casuistical devil, 
full of sharp practice and devilry. . . and I 
used to run into some shady affairs, particularly 
when there was a good fee, as in your case, for 
instance. What was it you paid me then? 


2388 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


Five—six hundred. Enough to upset anybody ! 
By the time you left for Petersburg you’d left 
the whole affair completely in my hands. ‘ Do 
what you like!’ And your former wife, Sophia 
Mikhailovna, though she did come from a merchant 
family, was proud and selfish. To bribe her to 
take the guilt on herself was difficult—extremely 
difficult. I used to come to her for a business 
talk, and when she saw me, she would say to her 
maid: ‘ Masha, surely I told you I wasn’t at 
home to scoundrels.’ I tried one way, then 
another . . . wrote letters to her, tried to meet 
her accidentally—no good. I had to work 
through a third person. For a long time I had 
trouble with her, and she only yielded when you 
agreed to give her ten thousand. She could 
not stand out against ten thousand. She suc- 
cumbed. . . . She began to weep, spat in my 
face, but she yielded and took the guilt on her- 
self.” 

‘Tf I remember it was fifteen, not ten thou- 
sand she took from me,” said Usielkov. 

“Yes, of course .. . fifteen, my mistake.” 
Shapkin was disconcerted. “ Anyway it’s all 
past and done with now. Why shouldn’t I 
confess, frankly ? Ten I gave to her, and the 
remaining five I bargained out of you for my 
own share. I deceived both of you... . It’s 
all past, why be ashamed of it? And who else 
was there to take from, Boris Pietrovich, if not 
from you? I ask you... You were rich and 
well-to-do. You married in caprice: you were 


Fy 


OLD AGE 239 


divorced in caprice. You were making a fortune. 
I remember you got twenty thousand out of a 
single contract. Whom was I to tap, if not 
you? And I must confess, I was tortured by 
envy. If you got hold of a nice lot of money, 
people would take off their hats to you: but the 
same people would beat me for shillings and 
smack my face in the club. But why recall it ? 
It’s time to forget.” 

“* Tell me, please, how did Sophia Mikhailovna 
live afterwards ? ” 

“* With her ten thousand? On ne peut plus 
badly. . . . God knows whether it was frenzy 
or pride and conscience that tortured her, 
beeause she had sold herself for money—or 
perhaps she loved you; but, she took to drink, 
you know. She received the money and began 
to gad about with officers in troikas.... 
_Drunkenness, philandering, debauchery... . 
She would come into a tavern with an officer, 
and instead of port or a light wine, she would 
drink the strongest cognac to drive her into a 
frenzy.” 

** Yes, she was eccentric. I suffered enough 
with her. She would take offence at some trifle 
and then get nervous. . . . And what happened 
afterwards ? ” 

**A week passed, a fortnight. ...I was 
sitting at home writing. Suddenly, the door 
opened and she comes in. ‘Take your cursed 
money,’ she said, and threw the parcel in my 
face... .. She could not resist it... . Five 


240 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


hundred were missing. She had only got rid of 
five hundred.” 

** And what did you do with the money ? ” 

“It’s all past and done with. What’s the 
good of concealing it? . . . I certainly took it. 
What are you staring at. me like that for? 
Wait for the sequel. It’s a complete novel, the 
sickness of a soul! Two months passed by. 
One night I came home drunk, in a wicked mood. 
. . . I turned on the light and saw Sophia Mikhai- 
lovna sitting on my sofa, drunk too, wandering a 
bit, with something savage in her face as if she 
had just escaped from the mad-house. ‘ Give me 
my money back,’ she said. ‘I’ve changed my 
mind. If I’m going to the dogs, I want to go 
madly, passionately. Make haste, you scoundrel, 
give me the money.’ How indecent it was!” 

** And you . . . did you give it her?” 

‘*T remember. . . . I gave her ten roubles.” 

“Oh ... is it possible ? ” Usielkov frowned. 
“If you couldn’t do it yourself, or you didn’t 
want to, you could have written to me.... 
And I didn’t know . . . I didn’t know.” 

“* My dear man, why should I write, when she 
wrote herself afterwards when she was in 
hospital ? ” 

** T was so taken up with the new marriage that 
I paid no attention to letters. . . . But you were 
an outsider; you had no antagonism to Sophia 
Mikhailovna. . . . Why didn’t you help her?” 

** We can’t judge by our present standards, 
Boris Pietrovich. Now we think in this way ; 


OLD AGE 241 


but then we thought quite differently. ... 
Now I might perhaps give her a thousand 
roubles; but then even ten roubles . . . she 
didn’t get them for nothing. It’s a terrible 
story. It’s time to forget. ... But here you 
are |” 

The sledge stopped at the churchyard gate. 
Usielkov and Shapkin got out of the sledge, 
went through the gate and walked along a long, 
broad avenue. The bare cherry trees, the 
acacias, the grey crosses and monuments sparkled 
with hoar-frost. In each flake of snow the bright 
sunny day was reflected. There was the smell 
you find in all cemeteries of incense and fresh- 
dug earth. 

** You have a beautiful cemetery,” said Usiel- 
kov. “It’s almost an orchard.” ; 

“Yes, but it’s a pity the thieves steal the 
monuments. Look, there, behind that cast-iron 
memorial, on the right, Sophia Mikhailovna is 
buried. Would you like to see?” 

The friends turned to the right, stepping in 
deep snow towards the cast-iron memorial. 

“Down here,” said Shapkin, pointing to a 
little stone of white marble. ‘*Some subaltern 
or other put up the monument on her grave.” 

Usielkov slowly took off his hat and showed 
his bald pate to the snow. Eying him, Shapkin 
also took off his hat, and another baldness shone 
beneath the sun. The silence round about was 
like the tomb, as though the air were dead, too. 
The friends looked at the stone, silent, thinking. 


242 THE BET AND OTHER STORIES 


“* She is asleep! ”’ Shapkin broke the silence. 
** And she cares very little that she took the guilt 
upon herself and drank cognac. Confess, Boris 
Pietrovich ! ” 

' “ What?” asked Usielkov, sternly. 

‘“* That, however loathsome the past may be, 
it’s better than this.” And Shapkin pointed to 
his grey hairs. 

“In the old days I did not even think of 
death. . . . If I’'d met her, I would have cir- 
cumvented her, but now... well, now!” 

Sadness took hold of Usielkov. Suddenly he 
wanted to cry, passionately, as he once desired to 
JOVEs.0. 3 And he felt that these tears would be 
exquisite, refreshing. Moisture came out of his 
eyes and a lump rose in his throat, but... 
Shapkin was standing by his side, and Usielkov 
felt ashamed of his weakness before a witness. 
He turned back quickly and walked towards the 
church. 

Two hours later, having arranged with the 
churchwarden and examined the church, he 
seized the opportunity while Shapkin was talking 
away to the priest, and ran to shed a tear. 
He walked to the stone surreptitiously, with 
stealthy steps, looking round all the time. The 
little white monument stared at him absently, 
so sadly and innocently, as though a girl and not 
a wanton divorcée were beneath. 

“Tf I could weep, could weep!” thought 
Usielkov. 

But the moment for weeping had been lost. 


OLD AGE 243 


Though the old man managed to make his eyes 
shine, and tried to bring himself to the right 
pitch, the tears did not flow and the lump did 
not rise in his throat. . .. After waiting for 
about ten minutes, Usielkov waved his arm 
and went to look for Shapkin. 






















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